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IRISH MONTHLY 
A Magazine of Generel Riterature. 


EDITED BY THE REV. MATTHEW RUSSELL, SJ. 


TWENTY-SIXTH YEARLY VOLUME. 


1808. 


DUBLIN: 
M. H.GILL & SON, O’CONNELL STREET. 
LONDON : BURNS AND OATES; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND CO. 


c 2343 
á 


<i 1D OLLEGN 
FEB 8 1917” 
Sean 


loi 


nett OR 


CONTENTS. 





SToRIES. 

Doings in the Dale, By the Rev. David Bearne, 8.J. Pags 
Prologue os ee oe ee 9 
CHAPTER L Professional Gossip os os ee 12 
II, An Article in The London Review oe oe 16 
III. Ridingdale Hall ee ve 2. 90 
IV. ‘* Sweetie ”” es _ s 97 
V. Return of Croesus - oe ee 129 
VI. A Confession oe oe we : 182 
VII. The Sequel of a Scene oe ve ..  I86 
VIII. Boys and Birds ee oe s. 2056 
IX. Notes of Interrogation . oe »» 210 
X. Young Mr. Simpkit’s Puzzlement ee ». 250 
XI, Enchanted Gronnd - oe oo 264 
XII. The Looming of the Birch - oe ». 259 
XIII. Retrospective ee os oe s. 821 
XIV. FriondainNeed ., oe oe -» 326 
XV. The Sports of the Snags oe ee .. 360 
XVI. The Doings of Mr, Kittleshot. . oe .. 364 
XII. From Play to Prayer we oe .. 370 
XVII. All Among the Hay ee ee .- 419 
XIX. The Doings of the Doctor oe oe we 423 
XX. An Orchestra in Embryo ee oe s. 428 
XXI. Mrs. Byrse's Discovery ee ve . 474 
XXII. Thoughtleag Thoughtfulness .. we ». 481 
XXIII. Mr. Kittleshot’s Resolve oe oe -. 530 
XXIV. Comings and Goings ee oe -. 538 
XXV, Mr. Kittleshot’s Proposals ee 0. -. 590 
XXVI. The Story of Willie Murrington -e . 594 
XXVII. Kindred Spirits .. we oe .. 649 
XXVIII. The Coming of Christmas ve ee s 656 
XXIX. Christmas [ve oe oe »- 660 

Through the Dark Night; or, ‘Thirty Years Ago. By Attie O'Brien. 
CHAPTER XVIII. “ She will come in Summer” ,, ee s 38 
XXIX. O Gathering Cloud ! we ee s 838 
XXX. The Fenians oe oe oe se. 73 
XXXí. You are Cold or Hard - ee oo «647 
XXXII. Big Bill we we ee .-. 79 


XXXIII, The Good People ee oe +» 162 


1v. Contents. 


CHAPER XXXIV. The Black Casein Danger... oe 
XXXV. A Meeting ve oe os 

XXXVI, Another Warning ee ee 

XXXVII. The Struggle oe ee ee 

XXXAVIIL Awakening ee ee 

XXXIX. Nell saves the Fenians of Monaleena ee 

XL. Vincent leaves the Country .. oe 

XLI1. Ruin ot se 

XLII. Reaping the Harvest oe ee 

XLII. Capture and Escape oe oe 

XLIV. The Sentence oe ee ee 

XLV. After Long Grief and Pain .. oe 

XLVI. No more Parting .. oo ee 

Davie Moore’s Lifting. By Frances Maitland. oe ve 
The Jew’s Test. By Eleanor Donnelly oe oe 
A Christmas Elopement. By Frances Maitland we ve 


SKETCHES OF PLACES AND PERSONS. 


Our Lady of Consolation. By Eva Billington oe ee 

Our Lady of the Wayside. By the Same. oe 

Newry and its Literary History. By David J. O'Donoghue ee 

Easter Tuesday at Frascati. By Kathleen Balfe.. oe 

Glimpses in the West. By Dr. Montagu Griffin... ee 

Fanny 8. D. Ames. Notes in Remembrance ve ee 
The South Munster Antiquarian Society. By James Coleman 

John Windle of Cork os oe 

Rev. M. Horgan, Abraham Abell, ete. oe oe 

Sir John Gilbert, LL.D. In Memoriam .. oe ee 

” An American Obituary... ee 

” List of his Works oe ee 

Mary Furlong In Memoriam ee ee oe 


Essays AND REVIEWS. 


Known by Fruits, By the Rev. P. A. Sheehan, P.P. ee 
Some Notes on Macbeth. By Dr. Montagu Griffin 


The Irish Catholic University Question. By Mr. Justice O° Hagan 


Dora Sigerson’s Poems. By James Bowker we ee 
Table d’Hote Neighbours. By Susan Gavan Duffy .. ee 
All about the Robin. By the Editor ve 

The Hundredfold of the Devout Life. By Fr. Thos. ‘Burke, 0. p. 


More Borrowed Thoughts about Style. By M.R. .. ve 
A Sunday Outing. By Magdalen Rock ., - we 
Squirrels, By Madge Blundell ve ve oe 


Father Finn’s Stories. An Australian Appreciation 

‘Sonnets on the Sonnet.’’ Criticism and Aftermath. By M, R. 
Priedieu Papers. By the Editor. No. 14. Christian Liberty .. 
The Irish Poems of Aubrey de Vere. By. P. Carton, Q.C. .. 


“ Helbeck of Bannisdale ” and its Oritics.” By Charles T, Waters 


281, 


393 


Pace 
~. 169 
s. 161 
-- 190 — 
s 192 
ee 198 

236 

-. 241 
~e 246 
~» 299 
é 302 
.- 307 
s 387 
» 342 
é 457 
s. 613 
.- 625 
oe 52 
s. 146 
sé 200 
s. 266 
349, 407 
oe all 
182 

314 
376 
5438 

. 611 
»» 609 
. 1 
57, 1€9 
. 113 
s. 123 
»» 382 
and 662 
466 
490 
595 
499 
501 
513, 561 
-» 603 
569 

s 646 


Contents. 


Norges on New Booxs.. 


Dora Sigerson’s Poems.—Songs of Sion,.—Life of St. Augustine.— 
Illustrated Explanation of the Mass.—Coming Events Cast their 
Shadows.— Angels of the Battlefleld—Monsgr. Molloy’s ‘‘Shall and 
Will.”’—Lionel Johnson’s Poems—American Stories for the Young.— 
D. J. O'Donoghue’s ** Clarence Mangan.’’—The Rise of Democracy.— 
Islam before the Turk, etc. .. a ee ee ee 


Life of Blessed John of Avila.—India, A Sketch of the Madura Mission.— 
The Clongownian, The Mungret Annual, The Mangalore Magazine, — 
American Authors 1796-1595,—Data of Modern Ethics,—That Mad- 
cap Set at St. Anne’s.—Mannual of Temperance.—Confession and 


Communion.— Retreat Conferences for Convents, eto. oe oe 
Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia.—A Noble Revenge.—Fairy 
Gold.— The Second Spring, ete. .. oe ve oe 


Passion Flowers.—Tabb’s Lyrics.—Fidelit y.—Formation of Ohristendom.— 
Irish Phrase Book.—My First Prisoner, etc. ., ee oe 


Trinity of Friendships.—Guide to Indulgences,—Genesis and Science.— 
The New Utopia.—Three Lectures on Gaelic Topics..—The Five 
Marys.—Father Dominick, Passionist.—Devenish, Lough Erne.— 
Virgo Praedicanda, etc. .. oe os oe oe 


Yattendon Hymns..—Pére Monier’s Ward.—The Prodigal’s Daughter.— 
The Romance of a Playwright.— Notes on St. Paul,—Mariolatry.— 

St. Francis de Sales ds a Preacher.— Notes on the Baptistery of St. 

” Ignatius, New York.—Miss Erin, &c ee ve oe 


The Wind in the Trees.—Cardinal Wiseman’s Characteristics.—The 
Humours of Donegal.—When Lint was in the Bell.—Franciscans in 
England 1600-1850.—Gladly, most Gladly.—St. Anthony Saint of the 
Whole World, ete. oe ee oe oe oe 


The Wind in the Trees,—Early Dublin-printed Books.—Sancta Maria.— 
Castleknock College Chronicle.—Clongownian, etco.—The Psychology 
of the Saints.—St. Stephen Harding.—The Philosophy of Law, etc... 


Julie Billiart, Foundress of Sisters of Notre Dame.—Memories.—Christian 
Philosophy.— Cyril Westward’—Strong as Death,—Memorial of the 
Sacred Heart. -—Alcohol and Suicide, etc. ee oe os 


Clerical Studies.— Girlhood’s Handbook of Woman.— Beyond the Grave.— 
Consecration of Melbourne Cathedral.— Meditations on Christian 
Dogma.—Kathleen’s Motto.—The Mother and the Son, eto. oe 


St. Joseph of Jesus and Mary.—The Duenna of a Genius.—Clerical Studies. 
—Sonnets and Epigrams on Sacred Subjeots.—Jerome Savonarola, 
O.P.—Oxford Conferences.—St. Vincent de Paul.—Fate of the 
Children of Uisneach.—Two Little Girls in Green.—Directorium 
Sacerdotale.—The Ladies of Liangollen.—The Gartan Festival.— 
New Testament Studies.—The Green Cockade.—Bayma’s Striving after 
Perfection.—St. Juliana Falconieri.— The Structure of Life.—Our Lady 
and the Eucharist, Our Lady of the Rosary, etc. ve ve 


v. 


Pas 


44 


107 


166 


220 


274 


387 


568 


616 


vi. Contents. 


Paar 
Lady Gilbert’s ‘‘ Nanno ’’.—Father Sheehan's ‘‘ Triumph of Failure ”.— 


Historic Nuns —Cybele Hibernica.—More Baby Lays.— Fantasies from 
Dreamland.— Chequy Sonuets. — Brief History of California. —Cardinal 
Baronius.—Monasticism.—Authorship of ‘‘ The Imitation ’’.—Seraph 
of Assisi.— Father Anthony.— When Love is Kind,—Slater,8.J. de 
Justitia.—The Christian Housewife—The Victim to the Seal of 
Cenfession oe oe os oe ~- 666 


Poems AN) MISCELLANEOUS Papers. 


Mairend. By Rosa Mulholland Gilbert ee oe ee 1 
A Dream at Dawn. By James Bowker ee ve ee 20 
It is Morning. By M.J. Enright oe oe ee 28 
Lough Bray. By T. H. Wright ee ve ee as 38 
Over the Hills. By Magdalen Rock ., oe á oe 39 
The Elf-Child. By the Rev. P. A. Sheehan os oe oe 72 
Regrets. By Mary Furlong oe os Ma 86 
A Batch of Irish Learics. By the Editor 0s ee oe 87 
Calamray. By Alice Esamonde vs we oe ~s 102 
Last Words. By John Fitzpatrick, O,M.I. - ee oe 122 
Francesca Romana, By Frank Pentrill - ee » 2141 
The Three Josephs. By M. R, oe oe oe oo 142 
ToS.M.8. By P. A. 8. ae we we oe 146 
A Prologue to “ Aladdin.”” By G. O’N. "5 ee . 160 
A Song for March. By Magdalen Rock oe ee oe 168 
Sonnets of Travel. By the Rev. P. A. Sheehan... ee .» 180 
He Knoweth Best. By M. J. Enright ee os ee 189 
Little Pilgrims. By Alice Morgan : sé s 199 
The Divine Artist. By Alice Esmonde : - .. 204 
The Prayer of Mary Queen. By Lady Gilbert .. oe oo 226 
Rosa Mystica. By Gerard Hopkins, 8.J. as ve oe 234 
Leaves. By Mrs. Hinkson .. oe ve ee « 249 
Mary’s Month. By Magdalen Rock ., ae .. »» 264 
At Twickenham By John Hannon .. ve ; 272 
The Vision of Grainne. By the Rev. C. J. Brennan we -. 204 
Sickness. By K. D. B. - : os . 310 
Almond Blossoms in the Snow. By Constance Hope oe s. 813 
My Oratory Lamp. By the Rev. P. A. Sheehan .. ve -. 320 
In Kilbroney Churchyard. By Rev. George O'Neill, S.J. oe se 330 
The Liffey Unsung. By M. R. a es ee s. 847 
The Fountain. By F. R. A. O. o. se se s. 369 
Morning. By Alice Esmonde ve ee ee .» 876 
An Arrow. By Jessie Tulloch . oe - ». 380 
For Those who Suffer. By Josephine Loretz oe te -. 386 
United Still by Prayer. By 8. M.S... we = s 391 
The Death of St. John the Evangelist .. . ee ,. -. 416 
Buttercups. By Joseph Macnamara .,, oe oe s. 438 


The Drummer Boy. By Alice Morgan ee ve oe 452 


Contents. Vil. 


Paez 
Allaire. By Eleanor Donnelly ws - os »o 466 
Isolation, from Lamartine. By F.C. Kolbe, D.D. os s 413 
Beyond the Bourne. By W. A. Craig oe oe é] 494 
Jemmy and Betty. An Ulster Conjugal Ecologue .. oe -. 624 
The Land of Nod. By J. W. Atkinson, 8.J. ve we .. 643 
The Cloud, a Reverie. By Louisa Addey we os .. 644 
The City of Desire. By Alice Morgan eo oe é. 947 
A Writer of Fiction. By John Hannon - oe -. 553 
Swallows of Allah. By the Rev. P. A. Sheehan .. os s. 601 
A Song. By A. G. oe oe oe oo sé 689 
He Laughs who Wins. By Rosa Mulholland Gilbert oe .. 636 
A Rose. By the Rev. John Fitzpatrick, O.M.I. .. es .. 646 
The Washers of the Night. By Frank Pentrill .. ae 1. 647 
Mulier Fortis. In Memory of Mother Baptist, San Francisco s 663 


Clavis Acrostica. A Key to “ Dublin Acrostics.” 42, 104, 164, 219, 273, 331, 
381, 434, 489, 552, 608, 665. 

Pigeonhole Paragraphs ee ve oe 227, 152, 510, 554 

Winged Words oe ee oe oe 56, 891 








NOTICE. 


The many kind friends who take a personal interest in the 
prosperity of this Magazine can serve it best by forwarding at once 
their subscription of Seven Shillings for the year 1899, to the 
Rev. Marruzw Russz11, 8.J., 86 Stephen’s Green, Dublin, who 
will be glad of the opportunity of thanking them individually. 








JANUARY, 1808. 





— 


MAIREND. 


Scens—The grassy bain in front of the Fort of Flann, 
an Irish Prince. 


Fllann. 
Here cometh she who will deliver me 
(I hear her laughter) walking in the sun 
With our young babe upon her shoulder, while 
Her kisses smite the small red mouth that lies 
To hers as bud to rose. Sweetheart, my wife! 
Thy lover, sore perplexed with fret of war 
And scourge of plague and famine in the land 
Increase of foes and Druid’s warning threat, 
Knows but one saving counsel. Couldst thou find 
The master-soothsayer, him who works his spell 
Deep in the forest amid magic fires— 
Hark, how the wandering harpers sing of him 


Voices with harp-notes. 
“ Master of earth and air 
Is the soothsayer. 
Every region he doth know, 
Heaven above and earth below. 
Of the living and the dead 
All the secrets he hath read. 
Healing balsam ‘the hath found 
For mortal wound. 
He can paint the violet 
Washed of purple by the wet 
Kiss of rains that spoil the spring. 
He can mend the broken wing 
Of the amber butterfly, 
And hush the howling thunder in the sky.” 


Vou. xxvi. No. 296. 1 


2 The Irish Monthly. 
Filann. 


His secret whisper in thine innocent ear 
Would give back kingly power to this right hand. 


Harpers more distant. 


All hope ard all despair 
Wait on the soothsayer ; 
Forth from his circle of fire 
Cometh the heart’s desire ! 


Flann. 


The harp notes fail like notes of sleepy birds. 
Wilt thou go forth, my Mairend ? 


Mairend. 
Have no fear 
But I will go and bring thee faithfully 
The wizard’s secret counsel. 
Thee my babe 
I give awhile from out thy mother’s arms 
Unto thy bed of thyme, and cover thee 
With woven bog-down, grown in the wet plain, 
And fill thy tiny fists with poppies drest 
In silken scarlet, red as modest shame: . 
So may thy sleep be long and undisturbed 
By low of cattle from the grassy bawn 
Or ring of metal workers when they shape 
The arrow-heads to pierce the foes of Flann. 
Farewell, my heart’s dear love. Thy Mairend goes. 


Scene—The bogland on the verge of the forest. 


Mairend, travelling. 


Across the mighty bogland leans the sun. 

Sleep well, my babe, and grow, whose prattle sweet 
No mortal yet hath heard. Keep hid those eyes 

As blue as were thy father's ere the wars 

Filled them with gloom. Within thy little hands 
The ruddy-skirted poppies hold as fast 

As Flann doth grasp his sword when foes are named. 


Mairend. 


Now sail the weary plovers, winging home . 
O’er yonder waste, with bleat like thy soft cry 
Stirring my heart ; and now the stooping sun 
Reddens the still brown pools, as though his fires 
Kindled in the bog’s heart the warmth it breeds 
To light the hearth-flame. 

’Neath these ancient oaks, 
Where the thick-knotted foliage weaves a roof 
That darkles in the sky, while out beyond 
Glimmers around the moon a gold cloud-sea, 
I'll find the entrance to the forest’s heart. 


Scenr— The heart of the Forest. 
The Soothsayer. 


In purple cavern hollowed amid boughs, 
With flooring ever green, my mystic fire 
I kindle of the sun, and gather here 
From myriad tongues of flame unwhispered lore, 
So may I breathe what no man else hath known 
To him who dareth question. Sealéd hearts 
Lie open to my gaze, and nature’s knots 
Unravelled are to me. Undreamed-of worlds 
Reveal their night and day, and all that man 
Born unto them doth work or may endure, 
For thoughts of all the gods flash in the blaze 

' That enters my illumined brain. 


Mairend. 

At last 
These sombre woods, that are so densely green, 
Give vent for me, and in an open space 
I see the circling fires. / 

And yonder stands, 
Waving his wand, the enchanter soothsayer. 
As he doth weave his spell, the harpers sing. 


Harpers. 
Master of earth and air 
Is the soothsayer. 
Is there a broken wing 
Down through ether a-wavering, 
Or bird-heart oversick to sing? — 


4 The Irish Monthly. 


He hath a cure for all 

Meshed in his golden thrall. 

Doth the Jimpid pool run dry, 

Licked by a burning sky ? 

He can set the droplets going, 
Hissing, bubbling, sparkling, flowing, 
Until the flow’rets laugh as erst, 

And no more is thirst. / 


Corus of Harpers. 
Master of earth and air 
Is the soothsayer 
Forth from his cirole of fire 
Cometh the heart’s desire ! 


Mairend. 


O Master, hear me counsel ask of thee 

Who dost know all things; tell me truly now 
What thing is urgent to the need of Flann, 
Since war and treachery endanger peace 

And safety in his kingdom? 


Soothsayer. 
Sacrifice. 


To that thing by his heart’s love held most dear 
Death or destruction. 


Mairend. 
I am sudden blind. 


The birds that sang so sweet did sing my dirge, 
This sombre forest is my grave, and I 
Shall look no more on Flann. O master dread, 
Is there no other way? I am his wife. 


Soothsayer. 
Art thou his best belovéd ? 


Mairend. 
I am sure, 


And would not be unsure to win my life. 
Yet would I stay with Flann to be his joy 
When wars are done. 








Mairend. 5 


Suothsayer. 
The land hath need of Flann 
And Flann of thee. Thou hast thy answer. Go! 


Mairend. 


I will be brave and die for Flann. My love, 

’Tis but to sleep and see thy face no more! 

In darkness, may be I shall all forget 

How he doth miss me from his arms. Forget? 
That’s worse than woe. My heart would rather pray 
That it may wake and grieve eternally. 

Flann will be king of Erin. All rude foes 

Will kneel to him, and I not know, not care! 

O cruel gods, I will not go to death. 

Spare me and bid another sacrifice ! 


Scenr— The way to Flann’s Fort, through fields and woods. 


Matrend. 


Here in this golden glassy pool, with boughs 

Of darkling green o’erhung, I see my face— 

The face beloved by Flann; dear lips and eyes ! 

I will come back to him with better cheer 

Than hideous message of his Mairend’s doom, 

For Flann doth love his sword, let that be broke! 
Oh, yonder is a lamb that seeks its dam 

With anguish of a babe that’s motherless! 

I have not seen my babe for many days, 

And he doth look for me with great blue eyes 

All wet with tears, and passion in his cries. 

She cometh, my sweet babe, thy mother who 

Hath dreamed a gruesome dream. Dear lamb, I see 
Thy dam who runneth toward thee. Now she meets 
And comforts thee as babes are comforted. 


Shall I be less a mother than this ewe ? 

My boy. whom Flann doth love, and who will be 
Another man like Flann! Have I not seen 

Such love of him within Flann’s eyes that I 

Did weep and say he loved thee more than me. 
Doth Flann then love thee best? My boy is loat, 
Doomed by that love supreme, and I shall live ? 
Not so. I come, my babe, to succour thee; 

Thy mother was loved first, and ever best. 








The Irish Monthiy. 


Scene—Filann’s Fort. 
Flann. 


Sweet wife, what message doth thy true heart bring ? 
What secret huth the wizard whispered thee 

To heal the land’s disease and triumph give 

Unto Flann’s sword ? 


Matrend. 


His sword! O warrior love, 
Thy sword’s thine idol. Say thou lov’st it more 
Than wife or child. 


Flann. 


I love it not, my love, 
But use it for our need. The secret ? 


Mairend. 
Dear, 


The secret is mine own; yet rest thee sure 

That Flann’s good sword shall triumph, and the land 
Be saved from hunger and from pestilence. 

But tell me one thing truly ere I cease ; 

For, as I travelled through the lonesome woods, 

A oruel pain beset me lest our boy 

Might win thy love supreme away from me 

And leave me but a second place within 

The heart that was all mine, 


Flann. 
O foolish dream 


That hath put sorrow in my Mairend’s eyes 
And whitened her sweet lips, be scared aloof ! 
Dear love, I love our babe as babes are loved— 
Thee and thee only doth thy lord adore. 


Mairend swoons. 


Flann. 
Ye gods! I have o’erstrained the gracious strength 
Of her fleet limbs with travel for my sake. 
Long years of tenderness will scaree repay 
The debt of her devotion. Wake, love, wake ! 








Mairend. 


Scrne—The open moor, in the dawn. 


Mairend. 


I left my love on purpose for his weal 

_ Yet know not where [ go, or how to work 
My own destruction for his triumph. Gods, 
How can I tell the thing that Flann doth love? 
Bind ye my trembling hands and blind mine eyes 
And lead my ignorant footsteps in Death’s ways. 


Harpers singing from the forest. 


Broken is the spider’s line ? 

He can mend the cobweb fine. 

With many a thing he can 

*Witch the heart of man: 

Turquoise filched from summer skies, 
Sun-flame caught from maidens’ eyes, 
Damask rose and peacock’s feather, 
Sea-pearl belched in the foul weather 
Up from ocean cist ; a spell 

Winning love to prison cell. 

Trick to cheat the trick of Death 
When spent life grows short of breath. 


Master of earthjand air 

Is the soothsayer. 

Forth from his circle of fire 
Cometh the heart’s desire. 


Mairend. 


The moon doth look on me from her high fields 
With eye that doth not weep, and yet she might 
Be pitiful of my babe’s cruel loss. 
She is the mother of the little stars 
And watcheth them all night. 

Alas! what dread, 
What loathsome thing is this that crawls along 
Half hiding ’neath the hedge? Some beast of prey 
The gods have sent in answer to my prayer. 
Foul horror that doth shake my trembling limbs 
And wrest the courage from my love’s resolve. 


8 The Irish Monthly. 


How shall I move to meet thee? Now it creeps 
Out from its shelter ! ’Tis the skeleton 
Still living of a man who’s left his flesh 
Behind him in the grave he’s burrowed from. 
The famine ! Here come more of them, who live 
But have not eaten more than dead men eat 
For cruel wasting weeks. Some festering lie 
With purple shapeless faces, plague-stricken. 
Haply these die the faster ! 

Yonder lies 
A mother whose cold arms are holding still 
A famished babe unto her blackened breast 
Its lips might bear the poison of the plague 
And taint a foster-mother’s wholesome blood, 
Yet take from her salvation. 


Lifts the babe from the dead mother’s arms to her own bosom. 


There, poor babe, 

Take life from me, the while that wholesome life 
Runs in my veins, while I from thee gain death. 
Then sleep and grow and strengthen, without one 
Afflicting memory of her who gave 
Thee manhood, and who died by thee for Flann. 
Be faithful soldier unto him my lord, 
Who will be king in happy Erin then 
When all the plagues and famines are forgot, 
And every sword is rust. Seek thou my boy 
And serve thy foster-brother. Fare thee well ! 
Slip soft into the grass from out my arms 
That cannot hold thee more. O Flann! O Death! 

Dies. 

Echo of Harpers from the forest. 


Forth from his circle of fire 
Cometh the heart's desire. 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 


“We will unite the White Rose with the Red.’’—King Richard tii. 


‘*Thou hast spoken on that as if thou hadst been born in a district 
called Yorkshire, which men call the merriest part of Merry England.’’— 
Anne of Geierstein. 


PROLOGUE. 


My readers may spare themselves the trouble of trying to 
identify the Dale. It is not Wensleydale, nor I.une Dale, nor 
Swale Dale, nor Garsdale, nor is it any district of Western York- 
shire within easy distance of Bowland Forest. Yet it is a portion 
of that immense range of country where Lancashire and Yorkshire 
meet, and where the red rose mingles with the white. Wood and 
wold and water are there, and the range of the Pennine Hills. 

The Dale has a strong individuality. Its manners are quaint 
and its speech is mixed. It is much, ever so much, more agricul- 
tural than manufacturing; yet the Lancashire element of cotton 
is not wanting, nor is the Yorkshire commodity of woollen 
unknown. Scattered up and down the Dale are many mills, but 
one would have to stand upon a fairly high point in order to 
include in one’s view more than two or three factory chimneys. 
For Agriculture is a jealous lord, and only for the best of reasons 
tolerates the presence of Manufacture within the Dale. 

In the very centre of this district stands Ridingdale, and to 
know Ridingdale intimately is in itself erudition. This little 
country town—only if you call it little within hearing of a 
Dalesman you will hardly be forgiven—owes its importance to 
the fact that it is precisely fourteen and a half miles from every- 
where—that is, every town of importance. Many little hamlets 
cluster round it, lean upon it, and look up to it. In fact Riding- 
dale has been looked up to for so many years that the great 
overgrown village is quite used to the practice of looking down 
upon everything and everybody not made or born within its own 
borders. For generations it has tried to persuade itself that its 
population exceeds five thousand souls, but the census figures are 
too much for it. 

Within a mile of Ridingdale town stands the tiny village 


lt. . 


10 The Irssh Monthly. 


of Timington, with a population of eighty-five; three quarters of 
a mile beyond is the bigger township of Hardlow. Now Hardlow 
has a history and a factory—the latter being, in the opinion of 
Ridingdale, as disgraceful to it as the former is creditable. 
Ridingdale has never had a factory, and (though in secret it 
devoutly wishes that such a stroke of good fortune might fall to 
it) it is constantly congratulating itself upon the fact. 

What Ridingdale, Timington, and Hardlow each possess is— 
a squire. There was a time, of course, when the squire of 
Hardlow was a peer of the realm. That time has gone by, and 
the present writer is not now concerned with ancient history. 
The existing squire is Mr. Kittleshot, the proprietor of the factory 
mentioned above. Mr. Kittleshot is not the sole proprietor, but 
he is his father’s partner and the owner of Hardlow Hall. Mr. 
Kittleshot’s father is said to be a millionaire, and the wealth of 
his son is great enough to command the respect, not merely of 
Hardlow, but of Ridingdale and Timington. Neither of these 
two villages takes very kindly to the son of the millionaire, but 
money is money, and trade is trade, and Hardlow Hall is a place 
worth “ serving.” 

The squire of Timington has been non-resident for so many 
years that he is practically non-existent. A silly season comes 
to men and women as well as to newspapers, and the “return of 
the squire’’ is at once the sea serpent and big gooseberry of the 
neighbourhood when the periodical dearth of rumours becomes 
distressing. It is no secret that Mr. Kittleshot, senior, has his 
eye upon Timington, and would to-morrow buy up the little 
hamlet with its hall and park if only Squire Rakespear’s agents 
would sell. But they will not so much as disouss the question 
with the Lancashire millionaire. They assure him that Mr. 
Rakespear may return at any moment; but as for selling a square 
inch of land—words fail them at this point, and the sentence is 
finished in dumb show. 

Mr. Kittleshot, senior, has taking a great liking to the neigh- 
bourhood of Ridingdale. He has a lordly palace in one of the 
prettiest spots in Lancashire, but since the death of his wife the 
great house has become distasteful tohim. He has travelled much 
of late, has paid many flying visita to his son, and is expected to 
arrive at Hardlow Hall for Christmas and to spend the winter 
there. | 


Doings in the Dale. 11 


If Ridingdale sighs in secret for the presence of a factory 
within its midst, it longs still more for the presence of a person 
of means. Its inhabitants have no quarrel with the present 
occupant of Ridingdale Hall; but it is undoubtedly a little hard 
that Squire Ridingdale should be a poor man. And, unhappily, 
his poverty is not of the comparative order. He is the fourth 
son of old Lord Dalesworth’s youngest daughter, and, in the 
words of the Dale folk, he has not a farthing to bless himself 
with. Eleven of his fourteen children are boys, and after this 
nothing need be said. By profession he is a barrister, and if 
there is one man in Ridingdale, Timington, and Hardlow, or in 
the Dale generally, who is really loved, that man is Squire 
Ridingdale. Nevertheless, the trades-people are sad when they 
think of all that a wealthy squire might do for a town that is 
more respectable than moneyed. 

Ridingdale Hall itself is a reproach to its owner—who, 
however, is not the tenant. The house is Lord Dalesworth’s 
property, and the embarrassments of this good old man are many, 
and not of his own creating. His ,grandson, Jack Ridingdale, 
having committed the two biggest crimes known to civilised 
society—that of becoming a Uatholic and marrying the penniless 
woman he loved—there was nothing for it, Lord Dalesworth said, 
but to send him into perpetual exile. So the kind-hearted old 
nobleman leased to his grandson the Hall and farm of Ridingdale 
for ninety-nine years, refusing to accept more than a (very) 
nominal rent, and bidding “the graceless young ruffian’’ take 
his bread and cheese from the farm if he thought he had sense 
enough to look after the bailiff and keep things in order. 

s It’s all [ can do for you,” the old lord added, “ and it’s a 
great deal more than you deserve. Why you of all men should 
have made such a double-barrelled ass of yourself, I cannot 
conceive. But for these two monster follies you would have had 
the cleanest record of any lad I know. “here, go away, confound 
you !—and——God bless you! Never see my face again, and 
——if you don’t look me up regularly, I’ll come down to Riding- 
dale and horsewhip you.” | 

Jack Ridingdale felt that the old man was trying (and failing) 
to be wroth with one he loved. Of all his grandchildren, Jack 
had ever been the favourite. The young man knew that his 
grandfather's heart was sore. 





12 The Irish Monthly 


“But he will never have to suffer again through me,” the new 
squire of Ridingdale said to his young wife when they had made 
one or two rooms of the dilapidated old hall habitable. “‘ Whatever 
I can wring out of the farm he shall have—if you, dear, will help 
me. Are you certain, my darling, that you can look forward 
with content to a /ife of poverty P ”” 

Mrs. Ridingdale’s answer was: ‘The only thing I fear in 
this world is—wealth.” 

And in this instance language did not conceal thought. 


I. 
A PRoFEssionaL Gossip. 


Which lacks food the more, 
Body or soul in me? I starve in soul: 
So may mankind : and since men congregate 
In towns, not woods,—to Ispahan forthwith. 


BROWNING. 


BREORE a man can be a thorough-going, professional gossip, 

he must have leisure and independence. Now the leisure 
of old Billy Lethers was large, and his means were at any rate 
sufficient. He was a retired shoemaker, or to be more accurate, 
clog maker; though it was his boast that he could “ mek a bute 
to fit a fut wi’ any mon i’ Ridingdale,” and the boast was not 
an idle one. He had been an honest workman and sober, and 
from the age of eleven to sixty-five had worked ten, and often 
twelve, hours a day. 

Nobody, then, could blame Billy for retiring. For years he had 
employed a small army of workmen, and most of the cloggers in 
the Dale had been his apprentices. Before he gave up his 
business, people used to tell him that his trade would soon be a 
lost one; his invariable answer was,—‘ Not while t’ Dale folk 
kape a’ ounce o’ sense in their yeds.” It was one of Billy’s hal¢ 
grievances that after his retirement the clog trade began to 
inorease. But that was owing to circumstances no one could 
possibly have foreseen. 

Billy enjoyed both his leisure and his means. He was a 
personage in Ridingdale and there were people who feared him. 


ip 


Doings sn the Dale. 13 


To begin with, he knew the folk of his native town very well, and 
his memory was a formidable thing. More than one inhabitant 
would go out of his way in order to avoid a téte-a-téte with Billy. 
The ‘first two or three years after his retirement he spent in 
collecting old debts, or trying to do ao, and in this way he made 
himself unpleasant to a number of people. It was not nice, for 
instance, if you were trying to push your way out of the ranks of 
the common people, and had just taken a semi-detached villa on 
the outskirts of the town, and were entertaining a very select 
party of friends—it was not nice to have old Billy pushing his 
way into your newly-furnished drawing-room, enquiring loudly 
(if good-naturedly) when you were going to pay him for “ them 
three pair o’ clogs I made for your lads seven years ago P ” 

You had quite forgotten that your boys had ever worn such 
things, and were ready utterly to deny the fact only——vwell, 
something in Billy’s eye prevented the falsehood. So you climbed 
the high horse, protesting against the noisy intrusion, but 
promising to call on Billy “ at the first opportunity.” 

But it was one thing for Billy to enter a house and quite another 
for him to leave it—without leaving something behind him in the 
shape of “a bit of his mind.” Taking a chair, the old man would 
leisurely survey you and the assembled company, and then proceed 
to a mental appraisement of your new furniture, talking all the 
time of your grandfather (who was a notorious poacher, though 
Billy was too good-hearted to mention this) and your Uncle Ned 
the hedger and ditcher, and a host of your relatives living in 
various parts of the Dale, most of them honest folk enough but 
all earning their living in humble ways, and—Billy’s parting 
shot—ahoays paying everybody for what they had. Thus, through 
your own fault, you were humbled to the dust, and those new 
genteel friends of yours, people who had just come to Ridingdale, 
gave you one invitation in return and then dropped you. 

There was one man in Ridingdale who owed Billy a small 
matter of eleven pounds, ten shillings and twopence. When folks 
asked Billy why ever he let the fellow run up such a bill for 
clogs, the old man would say, “ That's neither here nor there : he 
owes every penny on’t.” The fact was that some twelve years 
before Billy retired, the debtor, one Joe Spinnocks, was having a 
hand-to-hand fight with poverty and sickness. One of these 
champions is usually enough to engage the attention of a married 


14 The Irish Monthly. 


man, but Joe Spinnocks had for years to face the two. He had 
traded with Billy all his life, and the clogger knew his ciroum- 
stances very well. He was a jobbing gardener, but at that time 
Ridingdale was overdone with men on the look-out for odd jobs, 
and but for Billy’s credit Joe’s four children would have been 
barefoot. 

Billy, to this very day, cannot stand the sight of a shoeless 
child, or for the matter of that a hungry one. There is a room 
in his house which is fitted up just like his old shop, and it is 
seldom that he has not a small pair of clogs in hand, destined 
always for orphan children, or those whose parents are in want. 
Yet it would never do to beg of him. “I know them as is 
deservin’, and them as isn’t,” he says; and when you remember 
that Billy knows everybody in the Dale, you may accept his 
statement. 

Joe Spinnocks was known to Billy. “ You'll pay me some 
day, Joe,” the clogger used to insist when the shame-faced man 
came to see if Billy would let him add a fresh item to the growing 
account, and then Joe would quote scripture and invoke blessings. 

“I might a knowed ’ow it ud be,” Billy often said in later 
years. And he would stand on the edge of the pavement 
and denounce “them snivelling dissenters ”’ until he was purple. 
He was very unjust towards these good people, but to attempt to 
reason with him un the point was only to swell the flood of what 
he considered a perfectly righteous wrath. 

When Joe’s account had been running for six or seven years, 
the jobbing gardener got a situation at Squire Kittleshot’s of 
Hardlow. A year or two afterwards, a series of circumstances 
conspired to place him in the position of second gardener. 
(Billy has a theory anent these same circumstances; but as I 
consider it libellous, I shall pass it over.) Joe’s position was now 
a flourishing one, and every Saturday night he came into 
Ridingdale (as most of the Hardlow and Timington people do) 
for “his markets.” But always he gave a very wide berth to 
Billy’s shop. 

A little later it was reported to Billy that Joe Spinnocks had 
been seen buying fancy boots and shoes at the swell shop in High 
Street ; so, when Monday morning came, Billy started off to 
transact a little business at Hardlow. 

Billy could hardly believe his ears when, having handed in 





Doinga sn the Dale. 15 


his account, Joe quietly remarked :—" What's the good o” this 
bit o’ paper? Don’t you see it’s out o’ date? J/ claim the statter 
0 limitation.” 

“You might a’ brained me wi’ a peacock’s feather,’’ Billy 
told his wife when he got home. “I wur that flummuxed I 
couldna saya word. . . . . An’I niver put down owt for 
mendin.’ Seores o times I put new irons on his own and his 
childer’s clogs, an’ I niver towd thee, lass, and so in course the bill 
said nowt about it. . . . °* Statter o’ limitation! Well, it 
beats owt. . . . .. But Joe Spinnocks and Billy Lethers ’s 
got to ev’ a word or two together some day.” 

When they did meet, all the words were spoken by Billy. 
Ridingdale remembers the meeting. It was on a Saturday night 
when the High Street is so crowded that strangers who see it for 
that night only are wont to carry away a very erroneous impression 
of the size and population of Ridingdale, greatly to the satisfaction 
of its inhabitants who like to look at their town through market- 
day spectacles. 

Billy had a commanding voice, and, if his gestures were want- 
ing in grace, they were not feeble. So that when, at the approach 
of Joe Spinnocks, the worthy clogmaker stood on an old packing 
case that was lying handy just outside the shop of the principal 
grocer (the very point where people most did congregate) and with 
a loud voice called upon the crowd to stop, he had an audience 
worthy of the occasion. And Joe was in their midst. 

“’Appen you think this is Joe Spinnocks,” Billy began, 
pointing to the wretched gardener, “ but it aint. It’s only ’is 
statter—’is statter o’ limitation. ‘There was a time when I thought 
Joe Spinnocks was an honest man, and p’raps he was. But he’s 
become a statter sin then. Now yo canna get blood out’n a 
statter, can yo? An” yo canna get yer money out o' Joe 
Spinnocks. [Great laughter from the crowd aud cries of ‘ Go it, 
Billy.”] Now when I ’elp a lame dog o’er a stile I don’t expect 
"im to turn round and bite me. An’ when I gie a mon credit for 
a matter o’ six or seven year, Í dunna expect ’im to talk about 
statters o’ limitation. But that’s what Joe Spinnocks’s done, 
and I want t’ lads o’ t’ Dale to know it.” 

Billy said a great deal more than this, and cheers for the 
speaker, alternating with groans for the delinquent, made music 
in the Hight Street for a full hour. All the Ridingdale folk 


16 ‘The Irish Monthly. 


who knew the story explained it to strangers, and—well, Joe 
Spinnocks escaped grievous bodily harm but was considerably 
hustled by the crowd that escorted him to the bottom of the street. 
He has never set foot in Ridingdale since. 


il. 


““ As sober as a Jesuit’s house at, Rome.’’—Gongora. 


In the last chapter I implied that Billy Lethers was a through- 
going professional Gossip, with a big G. This implication is 
true enough but requires explanation, if not qualification. 

Billy had retired from business, as we know, but he was still 
an active man. His garden was big, and his several pigs required 
attention. Every morning between the hours of nine and eleven 
Billy might be seen with a pair of yokes on his round shoulders 
and two buckets, going to various houses in quest of hog wash, 
or what he called “ swill.’”’ He was proud of his pigs and they 
did him credit. When he “killed,” the neighbourhood knew it, 
and many a poor family enjoyed a royal banquet of fry. In his 
own house the week was a festive, if a busy one, and always 
culminated in much rendering of seam and salting of bacon. 

It was commonly thought that Billy collected news and swill 
at the same time, and it is certain that the calling at many houses 
gave him a fine opportunity for gossip. Whatever interested 
Ridingdale interested Billy, for he loved his birth-place exceed- 
ingly. It was an open question as to whether he could, or could 
not, read, but he confessed his inability to write. He had 
occasionally been seen with a book at his elbow and a paper in 
his hand, but it was remarked that whenever a disputed point 
arose that made reference to some printed matter a necessity, 
Billy always lamented the unaccountable mislaying of his spectacles. 
This was thought to be curious in the case of a man who had the 
eyes of a hawk. 

‘Tf you want to know the rights on’t, ax Billy Lethers,”— 
was quite an old-world formula in Ridingdale, and it was more 
than complimentary to his tenacity of memory and accuracy of 
statement. It will be seen from this that our friend was not an 
ordinary gossip. 





A 


Doings in the Dale. 17 


There were two places in Ridingdale known as gossip shops, 
and speaking roughly, one was allotted to ladies, and the other to 
men. Both were of a rather high-class and exclusive character, 
and it was only for purposes of verification that Billy ventured to 
refer to either. Almost every morning of their lives two or three 
elderly gentlemen gave Mr. James Colpington, the chemist, 
a call, and it was generally understood that all great questions 
affecting Ridingdale were settled over his counter. Whenever 
Billy pushed back the green baize door and appeared in the 
calomel-scented shop, he was sure to receive a hearty greeting, for 
he and the chemist and the old gentlemen chatterers were con- 
temporaries, and had known one another since boyhood. The 
ladies’ gossip shop was of course at Miss Rippell’s, the fancy 
repository, Berlin wool warehouse,' and circulating library over 
the way. 

I trust I have made it sufficiently clear that both Timington 
and Hardlow were close enough to Ridingdale almost to form 
a part of it, so that it need not surprise the reader to hear of Mr, 
Kittleshot, senior, on one of those flying visits to his son, the 
owner of Hardlow Hall, finding his way to Ridingdale and to the 
chemist’s shop. But it did surprise Billy to see that great person 
leaving Colpington’s in excited conversation with old Colonel 
Ruggerson. Mr. Kittleshot had a paper in his hand, and from 
the way hereferred to it, it was clear that something in the printed 
pages had made him exceedingly angry. 

Billy would have scorned to lag behind and try to overhear 
the conversation, but his curiosity was much excited, and he 
thought that under the circumstances there would be no harm in 
turning into the chemist’s just to say “ good morning.” 

He found Mr. James Colpington making a certain soothing 
syrup much in demand by Dale people and laughing and talking 
to himself in a very unusual way. 

é That wouldna be old Mester Kittleshot wi’ t” Colonel, would 
it? ’’ asked Billy, when he and the chemist had greeted one 
another. 

‘© Aye, aye,” cried Oolpington, laughing afresh, “that's the 
man, and a fine state he’s in, that he is.”’ 

Billy waited for the story as the schoolboy waits for a belated 
tea. 

é He’s read something in the London Review that he cannot 

Vos. xxvi. No. 296. 2 


18 ‘The Irish Monthly. 


stomach,” the chemist continued after a few moments of quiet 
chuckling,—“ an article on ‘ Luxury and Social Disorder,’ and it 
has made him furious. Why, I cannot imagine unless it is a case 
of the fitting cap. Unluckily, after denouncing all authors and 
journalists as the most luxurious livers under the sun, and the 
biggest hyprocrites the earth contains, he asked the Colonel to 
look at the article and tell him if by any chance he recognised the 
writer’s style, declaring that he would find out the author if it 
cost him a thousand pounds. He went on vowing that he would 
surprise the scoundrel in his London chambers, or at his country 
seat, and denounce him as the vilest hypocrite unhung. I thought 
I saw a.twinkle in the Colonel’s eye, and a look of intelligence in 
his face, but he let the great cotton lord go on until he was 
exhausted, and then in the old soldier’s grim, dry way he jerked 
out,—‘ Know the writer intimately : best fellow in the world. 
Just going to call on him. Better come with me.’ ” 

“ And who is it?” asked the bewildered Billy, “and where 
have they gone P”’ 

“é Why to the Hall, of course. Everybody knows the squire 
writes for the London Review, don’t they.” 

Billy answered, ‘‘ yes, of course ; ” but it was the first time he 
himself had heard this bit of news, and it took him several minutes 
to digest it. 

“I'd give a five pound note to see Kittleshot’s face when he 
finds himself inside Ridingdale Hall. A luxurious liver, indeed ! 
Why, there’s more luxury in young Kittleshot’s stable-yard than 
in Squire Ridingdale’s whole establishment.” 

‘That there is,” Billy assented with emphasis ; and then he 
enquired—‘ D’ye think, Mester Colpington, as old Kittleshot and 
t’ squire knows one another ?P ” 

“Never met before in their lives. The old man is never at 
Hardlow for more than a couple of days. They say he is coming 
soon on a long visit.” 

é“ I reckon you're goin’ to t’ Hall yorsel for t’ play P ” 

*“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. ‘Bread and the games’ 
was the old cry you know, Billy; well the poor squire has too 
many mouths of his own to feed to have much bread to spare, but 
he gives us—something better than the Roman games.” 


‘“‘?Avna missed it mysen sin he started it. An’ they say this 
yeer’s “ll cap owt.” 





Dosngs in the Dale. 19 


Billy left the shop muttering to himself,-—‘‘ What a mon t’ 
squire is, surely. Writes in t’ papers, does he? Ony think, now! 
Wonder if there's owt he canna do!—I reckon he wunna cotton 
much to old Kittleshot. Id like to see ’em tegither, that | would. 
T’ factory man ‘Il be no match for our squire, that he wunna.” 

‘The factory man’ was thinking much the same thought. He 
was bowling away in the Colonel’s dog-cart in the direction of 
Ridingdale Hall, trying in vain to think of what his son had told 
him about the tenant thereof. And all Mr. Kittleshot could 
remember was that Mr. Ridingdale was a very poor man. 
Leading questions put to the Colonel sitting by his side only 
elicited jerky and unsatisfactory answers, and Kittleshot had to 
fall back upon a survey of the winter landscape. 

Ridingdale Hall stood about a mile and a half from the town 
and’ was on the side that lay furthest from Timington and Hardlow. 
The park, always very small, was now a grazing ground for cattle. 
Not a herd of deer was left. The Hall itself had never been an 
imposing structure, but now that portions of it were shut up, or 
only used for playrooms in wet weather, it looked, with its many 
uncurtained or boarded-up windows, desolate and uninviting 
enough. 

But as Mr. Kittleshot got down from the dog-cart and heard 
the many sounds of life within—a chorus of boys’ voices in the 
north wing mingling with peals of laughter in the entrance hall 
itself, the Lancashire millionaire could not but admit that a 
poverty-stricken house might be crammed with happy life and 


exuberant joy. 
Davip BEARNE, 8.J. 


(To be continued). 








( 20 ) 


A DREAM AT DAWN. 


HOMEWARD at morn we took our way, 

Weary of waltz and slow quadrille— 
Thrown on the seat, gloves, fan, bouquet, 
The blossoms dead, but scenting still 


The brougham that whirled us through the town, 
Whose streets were hushed in sheets of snow 
Not whiter than her dainty gown. 

The darkened houses row by row, 


The lamp-lit squares, the lonesome lawn, 
The stretching roads so dull and still, 
Seemed strangely weird beneath the dawn 
That lifted eastward grey and chill 


And lit the jewel in her hair, 

Above the eyes where sad thoughts slept, 
As o’er her pallid face so fair 

A solemn shadow slowly crept. 


Fatigued was she at break of day, 
Tired of the dance’s ecstasy, 

And of the music glad and gay, 

A surfeit of life’s joy maybe? 


No: in her wearied longing heart, 
Unsatisfied with pleasures vain, 
A dream of those who set apart 
Their noble lives to lessen pain 





Had made her grieve o’er empty days— 

The hours that build our wasted years— 

Until a mist bedimmed her eyes, 

The harbinger of hidden tears ; | 


For there before us in the gloom 

We saw the dim and shaded light 

Within the Hospital’s long room, 

Where, through the wearisome sad night, 


From cot to cot and bed to bed 
The tireless Sisters softly passed, 
Soothing each aching little head 
Sleepless upon the pillows cast. 








Known by Fruits. 21 


And I, like my companion too, 

Was troubled by a vague unrest: 

“ What hast thou done, what wilt thou do? ?— 
Something kept whispering in my breast : 


‘‘ Through every dingy court and street, 
Crippled and bent, with footsteps slow, 
Halting and lame on weary feet, 
Wondering at life, the children go, 


“ Sorrow and death’s pale retinue, 

They pass thee as thou idlest by: 

‘What hast thou done? what wilt thou do?’ 
In feeble monotone they cry.” 


Then low in shame I bent my head ; 
é“ Worthless I am Thy gifts to share; 
Thou who didst touch and raise the dead, 
Renew my life to work and prayer.” 

* * * 
Sudden a wind swept o’er the sea, 
It woke the birds beneath the eaves, 
And softly whispered unto me 
Of harvest time, and ripened sheaves. 

JAMES BowKER. 


KNOWN BY FROITS.* 


A TREMENDOUS responsibility is thrown upon us Catholics 
to prove to an unbelieving world the Divinity of our Faith 
by the divine loftiness of our lives. For men, to-day seek not for 
doctrines, but for deeds, forgetting, of course, that the deeds will be 
high and noble, or base and ignoble, according to the principles 
from which they proceed. The controversy runs thus between the 
children of light and the sons of darkness. We have a right to be 
the aggressors, for we have authority, antiquity, history, and every 
precedent on our side. And we argue thus. 
We say: Behold the desolation your rebellious unbelief has 
made. For Faith you have substituted political economy ; for 
charity, you give us reports and statistics; for Divine Providence, 


© This will be recognised as only a fragment, and not designed for the use 
to which we venture to put it.— Ep. I. M, 


22 , The Irish Monthly. 


you give us Boards; for the monastery you give us the workhouse ; 
for monks and nuns you have given us paid officials ; and you 
have tried to face the world-old and the world-wide problem of 
how to deal with poverty, disease, and crime, by Acts of 
Parliament, and the laboured theories of your statesmen and 
economists. llave you succeeded? Is poverty less prevalent, 
because you can tell us to the fraction of a penny how much an 
in-door and how much an out-door patient costs the rates? Is — 
crime less extended and enormous, because your penal codes have 
undergone revision a thousand times, and are still only worthy of 
some new-born civilisation? Is there perfect peace in your 
society, guarded by forests of bayonets, and protected by the 
terrors of the law? Is there no murmuring amongst the poor, 
no secret hissing of curses on the hearths of the labourer and the 
artisan ? And do your millionaires sleep in peace, for the 
rumblings of the coming revolution are yet afar off? Have you 
grasped the social evil and corrected it P and have the theories of 
your great thinkers brought about the millennium? You need 
only read the ghastly statistics of your morning papers, which are 
eloquent rather in what they conceal, than in what they reveal, 
and you will find that when you rejected Christ you adopted 
Belial ; he is your father ; it is by his power you seek to cast out 
the devils of poverty, disease, and crime. 

But your adversary will fairly retort: “ True! there is no 
content in the land. The poor rage against the rich; labour is 
pitted in a desperate struggle with capital; and from the depths 
of our workhouses come forth the angry accents of disgust and 
discontent. But can you do better? Come. Show us your 
works for progress, civilisation, society, and let us see Christ!” 

And we accept the challenge, and say : Come, we shall show 
you the far-flashing splendours of the Church of God ; and if not 
blinded by their effulgence, you may enter. Behold what our faith 
has wrought. From end to end of Europe we have lifted up the 
noblest Cathedrals, we have filled them with statues of our nobility — 
the saints of God—and we have put into our windows colourings 
that match the glory of the heavens, and faces and figures of which 
angels are envious. Witness Cologne and Milan, Amiens and 
Tours, York and Salisbury; and we have crowned all our 
architectural triumphs in that last wonder of the world—the dome 
under which our martyred princes an Apostles sleep. Lift up 











Known by Fruits. 23 


our eyes and behold, and admit that the Church which has wrought 
such wonders is of God. | 

But our adversary demurs to all this enthusiasm: Nay, nay, 
I admit that you have reason to be proud of what your zeal and 
poverty have wrought. It is only sublime faith could have done 
it. But you forget that false religions, too, have had their 
glorious temples, from that of Athene in Greece to that of St. 
Sophia in Constantinople; and that there are pagodas in the 
jungles in India, whose treasures would purchase all the cathedrals 
of Western Christendom. Show me something else—something 
distinctive and unique. It is not in architectural wonders that I 
seek or shall find Christ, 

And you answer: Come! Behold the long line of sages, 
philosophers, and divines the Church has produced. From the 
early Fathers, whose works are treasure-stores of wisdom, down 
to our latest writers, who have soared into the highest regions of 
human thought, there is one unbroken lineage of genius, combined 
with sanctity, the wisdom of the serpent combined with the 
gentleness of the dove. Who does not know them? Athanasius 
and the Gregories, Ambrose and Augustine, Aquinas and 
Alphonsus ? From cell and cavern, from episcopal palace and 
lonely hermitage, they have poured forth the treasures of their 
thoughts. No theme was too high for their reverential inquiries ; 
no office too low for their humility. Behold the long litany of 
our doctors and our saints, and admit that here is perfect 
Christianity, learning and humility, genius wedded to holiness. 

But here again your opponent says: True, it is a magnificent 
galaxy of genius, before which the mind, even of an unbeliever, 
might bow down in respectful homage. Your Church has reason 
to be proud of her gifted children, and to raise them on her 
altars for your veneration and your love. But is it not true that 
false religions, too, have had their prophets and teachers? And 
could I not quote a long litany of sages, whose genius equalled 
your own, and even if they are the wandering stars in the firma- 
ment, at least their radiance and lustre are unquestioned. No. 
Not in genius, however sublime, not in talents, however diversified, 
not in learning however deep and profound, do I seek Christ. 
Show me something else. 

And you say: Well, come! Art is immortal and inspired. 
Its breathings come not from men, but from God. Its inspirations 





24 The Irish Monthly. 


are from above. Its votaries are the chosen ones of Heaven; its 
last home is the sky. God Himeelf is the Great Artist, and surely 
where His children are, there too is He. Now, behold! From 
the earliest days until the Kenaissance, from then till now there 
have been gathered into our monasteries the noblest and greatest 
in this great family of God. Who has not read of the nimble 
minds and the busy hands that have filled the Italian convents 
with masterpieces of painting, and made the long galleries shine 
with the white marvels that sprang from their chisela? Who 
clothed the walls of dim chapels with the tapestries of their 
pencils, and made the ceilings glow in colour and form, until all 
the wonders of Holy Scripture came forth to be witnessed by the 
eye, and the horrors of the Last Judgment smote the trembling 
consciences of men? Who, except those who had seen Heaven, 
like the saint of Patmos, could have imagined such spiritual 
loveliness ? or, having imagined it, who but the children of God 
could have created it? Stand for a moment in that gallery 
of Dresden, and study the face of that Woman and Child. 
Confess, then, that it is only a child of Catholicity could have 
seen such a vision of loveliness, and only the heart of one who 
loved Christ could have painted such a presentment of the Child- 
God and His Mother! 

Very true, I admit, says the world. I bow down in lowly 
reverence before your Angelos and Raffaelles; I would canonise 
Fra Angelico, and I admit the grandeur and intensity of such 
faith and genius: but was there not a Phidias in Greece, an 
Apelles, a Praxiteles? Alas, and must we not go back to the 
land of Minerva and Mercury to find the perfection of the very 
art you worship? Ah no! it is not in Art however eternal and 
sublime, not in painting however perfect, not in seulpture however 
lifelike, not in the lustrous wonder of twilight galleries or the 
figures that gleam in the dusky avenues of libraries, that I shall 
seek or find Christ. 

And then, wearied but not conquered, you say: Well, at least 
admit that we have abolished slavery, broken the chains of 
captives, mitigated the severities of punishment, created reverence 
and piety for little children, lifted up woman from the condition 
of a purchased slave, and made her queen of her own hearth; we 
have built the universities of the world, preserved the ancient 
classics, brought education to the masses of the people, and spread 


Known by Fruits, 25 


the light of civilisation over the world. And what are you doing 
but feebly trying to restore the civilisation which, like the 
barbarian Goths, you have destroyed; and trying to build on the 
ruins of the Church’s temples and palaces the pigmy imitations 
of what faith and genius alone could raise ? 

And again, your adversary answers: All quite true. I admit 
the endless and illimitable debt the world owes your Church. 
All historians are agreed as to the world’s indebtedness to your 
zeal and to your faith. I admit that modern civilization is but a 
feeble imitation of what it has wantonly destroyed. But even 
here, I cannot find Christ; for all this is-but the work of human 
hands, and might be wrought without the intervention of Heaven. 
Again, I repeat that what I want is something distinctive and 
unique. Show me the Christ-of Nazareth and Jydea, Him who 
walked on the sands of Galilee, whose blood dyed the grass of 
Gethsemane and the rocks of Oalvary, and I shall be content. 

Then a great light dawns on our minds, and we conjecture 
that what the world seeks from us is not splendour and power, 
not genius or talent, not learning and art, but the lowly lessons 
that are pictured in the Gospels, and the sublime sacrifices that 
are expected from the faithful followers of Christ. And, wonder- 
ing at our own blindness, we exclaim : True, it is the “ Christus 
Consolator’’ whom you seek. Do we possess Him? Attend and 
866. 

Down the long dismal corridors of this hospital, where the 
sick toss wearily at night, and the air is heavy with the odours of 
decay, flashes a white cornette, the head-dress of the Sister of 
Charity. The wild eye of fever follows it as a star of hope, and 
peace sinks down on the wild, wandering mind for the calm and 
strength it gives. On the hot brow a gentle hand is placed, and 
there is coolness and delight, and the fierce blood ceases to throb 
in the temples of the dying, for a voice, like that which stilled 
the tempests of the Sea of Galilee, has spoken and commanded ; 
Peace! Odious things, things too horrible to be described, salute 
and mortify every sense; but there is not the faintest sign of 
disgust for the loathsome sights and smells, and no fainting away 
with horror when Nature rebels at its own dreadful possibilities. 
There is contagion, there is death, there isthe momentary possibility 
that a touch will bring with it a train of dreadful issues; yet she 

does not shrink. Her hands touch the awful transformations of 


96 The Irish Monthly. 


disease, her eyes behold the sad process of decay, and she cannot 
but breathe an atmosphere loaded with infection and thick with 
the effluvia of decomposition and death. And this is she who 
was reared in the lap of luxury, who saw only what was beautiful 
and refined, and who one day, to the consternation of her friends, 
stepped down from her perfumed boudoir to walk in the valley 
and be encompassed by the dread environments of Death. 

And here your adversary bows down his head in veneration, 
and murmurs: Yes, that is the Christ! 

And having obtained such a victory, you go a little further 
and say: Behold, in the asylum for the insane, the same 
miracle repeated. Round about are maniacs, their wild eyes 
seeking the phantoms of their deseased fancies, and their 
shrieks echoing through the midnight, startling the frightened 
sleepers, and unnerving even those whose nerves are steel. 
Here in this padded chamber is one bent on self-destruction. 
The warder and doctor are afraid to approach. But, behold, 
a.frail woman advances, and at her touch the horrors of 
insanity cease, and there is peace. Is this not the Christ P 
Aye, yes, the Christ of the tombs, at whose touch devils departed 
and angels came and ministered. 

And you say—Here again is one from whom 'all hope has 
departed. He is the sad inmate of the condemned cell. He 
hears the carpenters at work upon his scaffold; he has taken his 
last farewell of wife and child. His gaolers pity him. There is 
no hope. But that awful night there kneel by his bedside two 
Angels of Mercy, who breathe into his soul not only hope and 
resignation, but peace and joy. Is this the Christ? Aye, yes, 
He who said, “ This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” 

But this is not enough. There is an island in the Pacific 
Seas, a summer isle of Eden, Yes, but alas, also, an Inferno of 
horrors and disease and death. Huddled together are masses 
of flesh and blood that you cannot take to be human, for every 
human lineament has departed, and you only see mutilated limbs 
and some awful excrescence, that could not be recognised as a 
human face, were it not for the sockets whence peer out through 
furrows of mouldering flesh the eyes of a human being ; and there 
they are, living embodiments of Death, their limbs struck from 
them by the dread disease, before the worms have out their 
ligatures. The warm air is sick with smells; the huts of the lepers 





Known by Fruits. | 27 


are reeking with dreadfu! odours; and all men are warned off by 
the Governmental signboard—that which Dante wrote over the 
gates of hell—‘‘ Leave all hope, ye who enter here.” And no 
one will set foot on that shore of death ; for never again can he 
return to civilisation and life. No one, did 1 say? Iam wrong. 
The light of Heaven penetrates everywhere. So does the charity 
of Christ. And here is one, a young priest, who, for the sake of 
_ Christ, takes up the mangled limbs and washes and anoints them, 
and kisses the swollen cheek, though he knows it is the kiss of 
death, and habituates himself to all this corruption, until his very 
food smells and reeks of leprosy. And one day, he sees with a 
smile a white patch, not larger than sixpence on his hand. And 
he smiles. Why? Because it is his death-warrant. And the 
days go by, and his fingers drop off, and his hands and ears; and 
the dread disease eats up his face, until he, too becomes more 
hideous than death. And, at last, he ia laid in his lonely grave, 
wept over by lepers, unknown and unrecognised by the world. 

Is not this the Christ? Aye, Christ of the sick and the wounded ; 
Christ of the maimed and the lame and the blind; of the dying 
and of the dead. 

Is not this the Christ? Aye, Christ of the tombs and of the 
possessed, at whose touch devils departed and confessed ; and 
reason returned and gave praise. 

Is not this the Christ ? Aye, He who said to the dying felon: 
‘* This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” 

Is not this the Christ ? Aye, Christ of the lepers and the 


unclean —He who became a leper to cleanse the souls of men. 
* * * 


“ Show us, then, your works.” It is the ory of the infidel. 
Let him be refuted and confounded by your charity. ‘ Show us 
your works.” It is the cry of the schismatic. Let him be put 
to shame. ‘Show us your works.” It is the cry of your Catholic 
co-reiigionists. Let them be edified. ‘ Show us your works.” 
It is the cry of the Church. Let her be glorified. ‘Show us 
your works.” It is the cry of the gentle Christ. Let Him be 
gratified. For has He not said: “ My poor ye have always with 
you; and whatever you have done to the least of My little ones, 


that you have done to Me.” 
p. A. SHEEHAN. 





( 28.) 


IT IS MORNING. 
IRD-NOTES from where the waters play ; 
A blue sky, like a benison 
Dropt downward from His hand, whose throne 
Abides amidst eternal day. 


I watched the glimmer in the sky, 
And Death watched Aer with poised dart. 
A cry sprang upwards from my heart : 

é“ Ó Mary, lend her help to die!” 


I kissed her on the lips and brow. 
It was not life that fluttered there, 
But just the west wind in her hair. 
Sleep well, sleep well! ’Tis morning now. 
Mary JosgPHINE ENRIGHT. 


THROUGH THE DARK NIGHT. 
or, 
THIRTY YEARS AGO. 





Cuapter XXVIII. 


“SHE WILL COME IN SUMMER.” 


As the day fixed for Ethna’s marriage approached, her spirits 
became more variable: sometimes her heart sank within her, 
she thought of herself as “ a whited sepulchre full of dead men’s 
bones,’ and made midnight resolutions to tell Vincent of her 
summer folly ; but the calm air of morning changed her purpose 
and kept her lips closed. 

Vincent made a candid confession of several little love passages, 
and according to his own showing he went almost as far as Philip 
Moore had done with her. It seemed ridiculous for her to be 
making so much of things which he took so lightly. “ He has 
no feeling,” she said to herself, with that inclination passionate 
natures have to exaggerate their own and underate other people’s 
capacity for feeling. “Men have no heart. I suppose Philip 





A. 


Through the Dark Night. 29 


Moore will tell his fiancée by and by what a fool he made of me, 
and laugh over it.” 

The days passed on, and after having prospered admirably in 
his enterprise, Cheap Jack announced his departure from Monalena. 
Among the last consignment of goods that arrived to him was a 
goodly assortment of firearms whose sale was not quite so openly 
conducted as before; those who became their -possessors did not 
make such a display of their purchase, but conveyed them away 
at night to their homes, where they were placed in convenient 
obscurity. 

The police from Beltard, and their wives, had paid several 
visits, and were always received with marked respect, There were 
some odds and ends of goods to be brought, and when the day 
arrived for Cheap Jack’s departure, when farewells were said, and 
the waggons disappeared over the distant hills, a great silence 
seemed to fall upon the village. Idlers felt, Othello-like, that 
“ their occupation was gone,” the young people missed the excite- 
ment, but the elders of the parish felt relieved by the departure, 
for day or night they could get no good of their boys, and rumours 
of the disturbed state of the country were every day more frequent 
and alarming. 

“I hope, Mr. Smith, I shall have the pleasure of seeing you 
in Monalena again,” said the parish priest, who, notwithstanding 
his cautious dislike to strangers, had been won by Louis Sarsfield’s 
frank bearing, and had asked him several times to dine with him, 

é Thank you, sir. I should be sorry to think I would not see 
once again friends who have been so kind to me. Father Garrett 
has kindly asked me to run down for a few days in summer; 
which, please God, I intend doing.” 

Nell’s bright eyes were dim with tears when Louis Sarsfield 
left the room after shaking hands with her, but comforted herself 
by thinking that he seemed extremely lonely. She wandered up 
and down, in and out, for some hours, as though she were 
unconsciously seeking something she had lost, until she awoke with 
a start to think of Father Garrett’s dinner, and became her old, 
busy self again, with no time to give to idle dreaming. 

One night, immediately before her wedding, Ethna proceeded 
to her room, carrying with her various presents; among them a 
handsome set of gold ornaments which she had received from Henry 
Moore that morning. 


30 The Irish Monthly. 


Au hour passed away. The Madam was about forgetting the 
cares of the wedding breakfast in a peaceful sleep, when she was 
aroused by the sound of sobbing in Ethna’sroom. After listening 
for a moment, resting on her elbow, she got up, wrapped her dressing 
gown about her, and proceeded to investigate the cause of this 
seeming sorrow. 

On entering the girl’s room she found her on her knees, weep- 
ing passionately, with her face buried in the bed clothes. 

‘‘Ethna, Ethna,” she cried, horror-stricken. “ What is the 
meaning of this? ” 

“I am weeping for my ruined life, for my lost youth. Oh, 
mother, my heart is breaking,” cried Ethna, wildly. 

“My darling child,” cried the Madam, in great tribulation. 

“ I was never anything but a trouble to you, it will be well for 
you to be rid of me,” continued the girl. ““0h, mother, I am 
mad with misery; why did ye make this match? Buying me a 
husband with your money.” 

The Madam knelt beside her, and put her trembling arms 
around her. 

“ Why was I ever born?” Ethna went on. “ Born to endure 
humiliation and sorrow. How can I marry Vincent?. I won’t 
marry him, my heart would break.” 

The Madam’s tears ceased. She stood up and sat on the side 
of the bed. 

“ My dear Ethna,” she said, “no ove is forcing you to marry 
him. There is no necessity you should marry anyone you do not 
like. You would wrong him very much if you became his wife 
with such feelings as those. It is not too late, thank God. I will 
write to George Taylor to-morrow, and have the marriage broken 
off,” 

This was a view of the case that had not occurred to Ethna. 
She litted her wet face: “Oh, you could not do such a thing, 
mother, and everything prepared for the wedding.” 

‘“It will be but a nine days’ wonder, my dear, and anything is 
better than that you should marry against your inclinations. 
Many a marriage is broken off at the last moment. Vincent is so 
young and so good that he will soon get over the disappointment.”’ 

“ Oh, mother, I could not bear all the talk. I can’t break it 
off—it has gone too far.” 

“ Nothing is so bad as an unhappy marriage, dear. All that 





Through the Dark Night. él 


will be said is, that Mr. Talbot and I disagreed about the settle- 
ments. There is no fear but Vincent will get some one else very 
glad to be his wife ”’ ' 

“Oh, no, no,” cried Ethna; “we will leave things as they 
are. I could not bear to be upsetting everything now.” 

“You need not say a word. I will take everything on myself ; 
s0 you won’t have the least worry.” And the Madam smoothed 
down the girl’s soft hair. ‘I could not let it go on, my dear, 
knowing your feelings, as I do now—it would be dreadful to have 
you married to a man you did not like.” 

é“ But, mother, you mistake, I do like Vincent,” said the girl, 
whose tears had ceased, and whose feelings had undergone a rapid 
change. ‘It was only—only ”—— 

é“ Only not well enough to marry him,” said the Madam. 

é“ Yes, quite well enough,” answered the girl. 

“ My dear,” said the Madam, after a moment’s silence, and 
there was a touch of displeasure in her gentle voice, “I cannot 
understand you. I don’t know if you understand yourself. Is it 
possible your secret flirtation with Mr. Philip Moore is causing 
you any regrets, or making your mind waver? You say you will 
not marry Vincent Talbot, and you say you will not put off the 
marriage. What do you wish to do?” 

“ Oh, mother, forgive me; it is all over now.” She put her 
arms around the Madam’s neck. ‘‘ You'll see no more wayward 
humours. I'll be as happy as ever to-morrow. I was nervous 
and out of spirits, and worked myself up into an agony ; don’t 
say a word to any one about it.” | 

“ But, my dearest, consider what you are about, Remember 
the wedding can be easily put off.”’ 

é“ No, no, I would not wish it; let things go on.” 

é Well, dear, think more seriously to-night than you seem to 
have done yet. Marriage is not a thing you can do and undo; 
and it would be a dreadful mistake of you to let false shame, or 
fear of talk, prevent you from putting an end to the matter. 
No doubt, it would be very painful and unpleasant, but it would 
be far better than to force your inclinations. You must be doing 
a great wrong to Vincent; it is a dangerous thing for a young 
man to get a wife that does not care about him.” 

After some more conversation the Madam retired to her own 
room perplexed and saddened. She was quite unakle to under- 


32 The Irish Monthly. 


stand the complex emotions that had thrown her daughter into 
such momentary despair. She was sincere in advising that the 
marriage should be broken off or deferred, but she was relieved 
when the girl altered her anti-matrimonial resolve, for she believed 
marriage to be a great moral restorative; it would cure Ethna 
of all her megrims; she would have her house, and husband, and, 
by-and-by, her children to look after. She could not but be 
conteat and happy. 

Ethna went to rest somewhat ashamed of her sentimental out- 
burst. When sbe called out in her unreasoning grief that she 
would not marry Vincent, it never occurred to her that the Madam 
would take her at her word and show her an open road out of such 
difficulty. She wept for the ecstacy of the past, but she did not 
wish to relinquish the chance to make the present more satisfying. 
What would she do if she had to remain on in the solitude of 
Mona ?—her gay city life become another dream. Vincent’s 
affection, also lost for ever. She shuddered at such unpleasant 
possibilities, and fell asleep determining it was the last time she 
would give way to romantic outcries of the heart. 

The next morning her anxious mother found all signs of 
sorrow had disappeared, and Ethna was more like her old self 
than she had been for a long time. 

The wedding was private, and very pleasant. ‘The Taylors, 
Mr. Talbot, two male friends of Vincent’s, the bridesmaids, Nell 
O'Malley, and Belle Power, with two priests, composed the 
company, | 

Ethna looked very handsome in her bridal dress of white 
satin and lace. There had been talk of a quieter costume, but 
Vincent resented the idea of getting a bride in anything but 
white. There was the necessity for her having handsome evening 
dresses, so it was concluded an orthodox bridal costume would be 
as sensible a one as any other. 

There were amusing speeches made, merry laughter echoed 
in the parlour and in the kitchen, where humble “ well-wishers ”’ 
held high revels. Then there was the usual excitement—the 
changing of dress, the farewells, the gay parting words, the sad 
passionate clinging embrace between mother and child, and all 
was done; the bridal party departed to catch the train in Beltard 
for Dublin. 

The last bird had left the nest, the company who had gathered 








Through the Dark Night. 33 


to see it take flight took their departure. 

Little Nora, wearied out with the usual excitement, had fallen 
asleep with the kitten in her arms, and the Madam walked from 
room to room collecting with loving hands garments and trifles 
that Ethna had carelessly laid aside. 

‘She will come in summer,” she said. ‘ Summer won't be 
long coming.”’ 

Week after week slipped away. Nell O’Malley often came 
to see the Madam, and filled the house with her fresh young life, 
Nora and she running after each other through the house and 
round the flower beds, which were always kept in order in ex- 
pectation of Ethna. Lizzie Lynch also came to hear news of 
“Miss Ethna.”” Whenever her letters made honourable mention 
of Corney O’Brien, the Madam did not omit reading them, which 
sent the listener away with a happier heart. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 
O GATHERING CLOUD ! 


The Dublin office was in a good street not far from Stephen’s 
Green. Mr. Talbot usually had the upper portion of the house 
let, but it was now furnished for the young people—furnished, 
too, in a style that showed taste was more regarded than economy. 

“ It is better to get good things—they are cheaper in the end,” 
said Vincent, a sentence that is uttered by every one who has 
expensive tastes, and likes to give them an appearance of the 
cardinal virtue. 

Ethna also had an admiration for handsome surroundings, go 
she did not deny her husband the pleasure of disposing them 
around her. 

“I saw such a pretty trap to-day, Ethna,”’ said Vincent, one 
evening. ‘I’m sure it will goa bargain ; it belonged to an officer’s 
wife; she used to drive it herself. What would you think if I 
bought it? I must get a horse; we are losing as much in cab- 
hire as would keep one.” 

Ethna thought it would be a very agreeable arrangement ; 
and a pleasant picture of herself driving down the city presented 


Vou. xxvi. No. 295. 3 


3 


34 The Irish Monthly. 


itself before her mental vision. The trap was bought and placed 
in the coach-house which was attached to their residence. 

Vincent was on the look-out for a horse to occupy the stable, 
when one night Corney O’Brien came up to him in great excite- 
ment. 

“ Mr. Vincent,” he exclaimed, “we have a chance of the 
grandest horse in Ireland.”’ 

“ How—where ?” said Vincent. 

“ Do you remember Mr. Smith, sir, and Seagull down in 
Monalena? Who did I meet but him, and I going down Dame 
Street ; and he'll give you the loan of Seagull if you take him.” 

“ The loan of him,” said Vincent. “ Why should he give me 
the loan of him? Perhaps he would sell him. Where is heF 
Where can I see him ?” 

“ Here is his address, sir; and he said he would call at the 
office as soon as ever he had time. O Lord! if we had Seagull, I 
would not call the king my cousin. He won't sell him, though ; 
he won’t part him for ever. But he says he has to leave town, 
and he would give him to you, for he knows you would take care 
of him.” 

“I would give a hundred and fifty for him,” said Vincent. 
éI will look him up at once. Do not be out when I come back.”’ 

Vincent went down town and called at Louis Sarsfield’s hotel. 
He found him within. He appeared to have doffed the role of 
speculative trader in imperfect chaney ware, and now seemed to be 
a gentleman, assuming by right the position of one. 

The young men had a long talk about many things. The 
affair of the horse was satisfactorily arranged. Vincent was to 
take charge of him, and make any use he pleased of him while his 
owner was out of town. 

“ By Jove, Ethna, we are in luck,” Vincent exclaimed when 
he entered his own room about twelve o’clock. ‘ You have the 
best horse in Dublin at your disposal, Joe Smith’s Seagull; and 
he is coming to dine with us to-morrow.” 

é Which animal—the horse or the man P” asked Ethna. 

é“ Both, my dear girl—biped and quadruped respectively.” 

é“ Is Mr. Smith a nice person to ask to dinner ?”’ said Ethna. 

“He is no end of a nice fellow,” answered Vincent, ‘ and 
seems to be a thorough gentleman. He is doing the swell now 
at all events. You could never associate him with Cheap Jack 


ip, 


Through the Dark Night. 30 


of the voluble tongue.” 

The machinery of Ethna’s life moved now without emitting 
any discordant creaking. She was surrounded with luxury ; she 
was handsome; she dressed beautifully, and she became the 
fashion. Vincent had a good many friends or acquaintances, as 
the only child of a father supposed to be wealthy usually has. 
They called upon his wife, and handsome Mrs. Talbot was con- 
sidered quite an addition at many social reunions. 

She assiduously cultivated her fine voice, and at those small, 
pleasant suppers they were in the habit of giving, would sing the 
national melodies with a spirit that would wake some of her hot- 
headed listeners into the wildest enthusiasm. 

Ethna thoroughly enjoyed it all—the excitement, the 
admiration, the notoriety. The knowledge of being appreciated 
stimulated her into brighter and wittier development, and she 
became a most entertaining woman of fashion, 

She did not at all agree with Longfellow about that “ still- 
ness”’ which he says “ best becomes a woman.” Nor did she 
dream of “sitting by the fireside of her husband’s hearth to feed 
its flame.” It did not occur to her simply. In the beginning 
Vincent was inclined to stay indoors at night if she were not 
going out; but she would take a book, answer him abstractedly 
if he spoke to her, until he would get up and say he “ might as 
well go out for half an hour to see what was going on at the 
club.” She would give a sigh of relief when he was gone, make 
herself more comfortable in her armchair, and lose a consciousness 
of all external things following the fortunes of some wayward 
heroine of modern romance. | 

In the merry month of May they paid the promised visit to 
Mona. The freshness of spring lingered in the breath of the 
young summer, the hedges were white with scented blossoms, the 
face of nature was softly breaking into smiles, into colour and 
radiance, and the world looked young and lovely. 

In an ecstasy of joy the Madam received her daughter, and 
gazed on her with delighted eyes. How improved she was—her 
skin so beautifully fair, and her complexion as fine and clear as 
ever; her hair so becomingly arranged; her clothes fitting so 
perfectly. Why, actually she seemed to have grown taller. 

“My darling Ethna, what a grand lady you have become! ” 
exclaimed the Madam. “How can I put you up at all?” 





36 The Irish Monthly. 


And Nora stroked down the silks and velvets with her fat 
little hands. 

Ethna brought many presents for her friends, and a box of 
books to help her to while away the time among them. On 
Sunday she caused a good deal of distraction in church by the 
splendour of her appearance, and the country people exclaimed as 
she drove away from the gate: 

“Glory be to God! didn’t Miss Ethna grow up the fine lady ?” 

Lizzie Lynch often came over to see her, and, after some 
hesitation, made known to her that she was very anxious to get 
something to do that would relieve her father of the expense of 
supporting her. . 

“ There is a houseful of us there;” said Lizzie, “ and ’tian’t 
easy to be providing the dinner and the breakfast for us from 
year’s end to year’s end. ’Tisn’t so much the wages I think of 
as to have the weight of me off him, and little Mary is well able 
to take my place.” 

“Why, Lizzie, I'll take you myself if that is the way,” 
answered Ethna. ‘‘ You will be the greatest use to me to look 
after everything.” 

“Oh, Miss Kthna, if you did,” exclaimed the girl, with a 
delighted face, “I'd be made for ever; I won't ask a halfpenny 
wages, or anything but the bit I’d eat; I'd be as happy asa 
ueen.”” 
ai And you would be near Corney,” said Ethna, with a smile. 

“ Ah, then, maybe that would be no harm,” answered the girl, 
simply. “ ‘They say young men often take to wild ways in the 
city, and a friend that would speak the word of advice might be 
listened to, if she was near.” 

‘There is no fear of Corney, Lizzie; he is a very steady 
fellow. Mr. Vincent has the greatest confidence in him.” 

é There is worse going than him,” said Lizzie; “he never 
gave much trouble tu those over him. ’Tis often Willie and Dan 
wishes he wasn’t so good entirely; for father is always holding 
him up es a pattern.” 

It was arranged that Lizzie should return to Dublin with 
Ethna. The Madam quite approved of the arrangement, for her 
trust in city servants, and in her daughter’s capacity for managing 
them, was of a very wavering nature. 

The firet ten days passed away pleasantly enough: we enjoy 


Through the Dark Night. 37 


having old acquaintances see us in a new phase of our existence. 
There were many visits received and returned. Some days were 
spent between Mr. Talbot and the Taylors in Beltard; but after 
that Ethna began to feel the dulness somewhat oppressive, It 
was a relief when Nell O’Malley announced one evening that Mr. 
Joe Smith was coming to them next morning for a few days. 

Neagull had established intimate relations between him and 
Vincent, and they had become excellent friends. He often dined 
with them in Dublin. Ile was irreproachable in manners and 
appearance; and in city society people do not have time to 
examine so closely into the circumstances of those they meet as in 
the country, where they stand like the houses, apart, and afford a 
view of every side. Ethna desired her mother to ask them all to 
dinner immediately, which rather surprised that good lady. 

“I don’t know what family he is,” said Ethna, in answer to 
the Madam’s inquiries. ‘Is not one Smith as good as another, 
when he comes from America? But he is a gentleman, certainly, 
and knows ever so many; he was an officer abroad. I dare say 
his going about with Cheap Jack was a freak ; he seems to be 
well off.” 

The Madam did as she was directed, and quite agreed with 
Ethna, when she had entertained Joe Smith; “ he was excellent 
company,” she said, “she only regretted that he could not spend 
another evening at Mona.” 

He remained a week at Monalena. Father Garrett had 
become strangely thoughtful ; he and his guest had long, earnest 
conversations, which seemed to have no enlivening effect on the 
spirits of either of them. Nell felt the days fly by on wings of 
light. She had a little supper prepared almost every night; for 
the guest had a curious habit of lingering on the mountains to 
watch the pale stars steal out on the summer skies. Father 
Garrett would remain up for him, however tired he might be, and 
Nell was never weary. Who cares to sleep when he is happy ? 
Who would shut his eyes when the dawn of a new day appears 
above the horizon of his life, and a sunrise of supernal glory 
streams from the holy heavens ? 

A consciousness had come upon Nell and upon the visitor that 
made them a little uncomfortable in their relations. While 
Father Garrett was present, they could look at each other frankly, 
laugh and speak with the readiest atterance, but when they 





38 The Irish Monthly. 


happened to be alone they were inexplicably confused and 
awkward ; the girl rushed into conversation, giving a good deal 
of rather uninteresting information, blushing the deeper from the 
knowledge that she was blushing; and the young man walked 
about the room, taking up and putting down books and papers 
after a painfully objectless fashion. 

The visit came to an end. Louis held Nell’s hand in his after 
wishing her good-by. He hesitated as if he were going to say 


something, then suddenly pressed her hand to his lips and left 
the room. 


Atrie O’Brien. 


(To be continued). 


LOUGH BRAY. 


AS some drain deeply the Circean bowl, 

Till rosy vapours cloud the dome of thought, 
Blotting its frescoed splendours, so I drink 
Of lucid joy and many-hued delight, 
Of silence undisturbed and tempered awe, 
From this pure chalice set amongst the hills. 
Cold is the draught, as though from caves of ice’ 
The streams were drawn that fill this ancient cup, 
Chased round with quaint device of twisted stem 
And form extinct rough-hewn in boulder rude; 
And yet it breeds a rapture far removed 
From riotous mirth. Reason undethroned 
Holds sovereign sway; while Fancy roams at will, 
A sportive faun, till rapt Imagination, 
Awakening from her swoon of trancéd sleep, 
Spreads her broad wings and soars with eyes intent 
On the white orb, undazzled, undismayed, 
To heights where Reason totters. No such plumes 
Sustain fond Fancy’s flights. She, like the swift, 
Circles near home, or, if she cleave the blue, 
Drops, like the arrowy lark, sucked back to earth. 


T. H. Weient. 








( 39 ) 


OVER THE HILLS. 


I is an autumnal Sunday morning, and whosoever would hear 

Mass in the remote little mountain chapel of S——, must be 
stirring soon after the white mists have lifted from hill and hollow, 
so we toss one of our company—a young mau arrayed for the 
first time in full masculine habiliments, and self-conscious as a 
Lord Mayor appearing for the first time in his robes of office—to 
the front seat of an eminently useful and equally inelegant 
dogcart, and clamber to a position-by him. Our driver cracks his 
whip, and away we go, with much jolting, down a rocky incline 
for a hundred yards, and then come the hills rising one above the 
other with humble homesteads clinging to their sides, or built at 
their bases. The small fields are bare now ; the corn and wheat 
have been harvested and garnered as the carefully thatched ricks 
tell. One can imagine how gay these same fields would be in 
the summer days with the gorse fences all aflame, and the 
amethyet-tinted spots of heath yielding their fragrance to every 
passing breeze. The mists are all dispelled by the amber sun- 
shine, and a clump of trees on a hill many miles away is plainly 
visible against the soft blue of the western sky. 

The road is a narrow one, fenceless in some parts, in others 
bordered with straggling hedgerows that were white with haw 
blossoms, and hung with roses earlier in the year. The sunshine 
turns the fading lines of the ferns and brackens into gold and 
orange ; the leaves of the blackberry bushes are of vivid colouring ; 
the hardy white convolvulus struggles on its vagrant way; the 
blossoms of the thistle are turning from purple to grey. At the 
crack of the whip a whole colony of small birds start from their 
ecstatic contemplation of crimson berries and ruddy haws, with 
much rustling of boughs and fluttering of wings. Our small 
companion would fain possess one of them, and we instruct him in 
the legendary mode of capture by throwing salt on their tails. 

We have ascended three or four hills, and now the road 
stretches level before us, flanked on one side by an expanse of half 
moor, half meadow land. A brood of late swallows are fluttering 
over a dark-looking pool. Their relatives have long since journeyed 


to summer climes. There are plenteous stores of nuts on the 
4 





40 The Irish Monthly. 


hazel bushes, and the clustering berries on the nightshade are jet 
black, while a mountain ash by a homestead near shows its crimson 
branches through leaves of still delicate green. 

From every lane and borcen the country people come—the 
old men clad in coats of the cut of half a century ago, the elder 
women in blue cloaks or thick woollen shawls. The younger folk 
make a brave effort to follow the prevailing fashions; and the 
little maid who emerges from a winding path to the roadway, is 
fully satisfied with her own appearance in her new dark green 
frock. We give and receive cheery salutations, and occasionally 
catch a fragment of the conversations going on. These refer 
mostly to the prices of agricultural produce, or to new methods of 
labour; nor do these latter receive universal approval. We are 
very conservative in most things among these hills, and if there 1s 
loss in that conservatism there is also solid gain. 

And now we take a swift turn to the right, and the sound of 
a miniature waterfall breaks on our ears. Another turn again to 
the right, and the little church is in full view. It stands back 
on a slight elevation from the highway, and is a plain unadorned 
edifice, built in times when Catholics were aliens to public positions 
throughout the land. On the opposite side of the road the steep 
acclivity covered with larches and Scotch firs rises to the height 
of twenty feet. A little mountain stream comes, sometimes 
laughing, sometimes brawling, down its rocky bed. To-day it is 
in merry mood. 

There are fewer loiterers than usual in the chapel grounds, 
and the jarvey who is leading his heated steed up and down the 
roadway is from the town of C , some eight miles away. 
From this we infer that the Canon himself has come to see to the 
well being of the most outlying part of his parish. He has been 
here a good hour before the time appointed for the celebration of 
Mass, and he has not been idle. There have been confessions to 
hear, and disputes between neighbours to settle. 

Two or three women are filling large bottles at the holy water 
font, and, after a moment’s delay, we pass up the narrow aisles to 
a front seat. Inside the church everything is perfectly clean. 
There are fresh flowers on the altar, and before the statue of the 
Blessed Virgin; and the full glory of the morning sunlight comes 
ctraaming in through the tall eastern windows. In a little while 

vf Faith, Hope and Charity are read and Mass begins. 














Over the Hills. 41 


Now and then there is a low murmur of fervent prayer to be heard, 
and one instinctively recalls Aubrey de Vere’s lines :— 


"The long wave yearne along the coast, 
With sob suppressed like that which thrills, 
When o’cr the altar mounts the host 
Some chapel 'mid the Irish hills,’’ 


After Mass has been celebrated, the Canon has a few short practical © 
words of advice for his parishioners. Short they must necessarily 
be, for three miles away another congregation is assembling for 
second Mass, When we emerge from the chapel, he is starting on 
the way we came. Our charioteer isin waiting with horse and trap, 
and we follow in his wake down the hills. Our rate of progression 
is greater on our homeward way. Farm houses, and fields, and 
hedgerows with ash saplings denuded of their leaves, flaming 
beeches, and russet oaks, flit by in quick succession. Our small 
companion ig in high gocd humour, but—alas, and alas, there is 
always a ‘“‘but’’—he has his grievances. There are no pockets 
in his waistcoat, and the Canon never once noticed that superb 
and lately donned garment. 

MaGpALEN Rock. 





( 42 ) 


CLAVIS ACROSTICA. 


A Key to “ Dcsuin Acrostics.” 


Part XI. 


HE answer to No. 19 is “ Brown Study”; and the lights are 

bis, regret, ormolu, wound, neology. With what ingenious 

laconism Mr. Kirby made these all rhyme together! The first 

line of his quatrain of course refers to the Ancient Mariner and 

to Brown, Jones, and Robinson. As usual, he has recourse to 
Shakespeare to shadow forth the second “ upright.” 

No. 20 pairs together Blondin and Leotard. This Magazine 
will be read by some antiquarian, poking in the British Museum 
towards the end of the Twentieth Century, who will need to be 
told that Blondin crossed the Falls of Niagara on a tight rope, 
and that Leotard, I think, wheeled a man in a barrow across a 
rope near the ceiling of a lofty building. But, looking again at 
the lines in which a learned Lord Justice has enshrined the 
marvellous acrobats, [ doubt the accuracy of my note. The 
‘“‘ lights,” very delicately shaded, are Jill, base, Orinoco, night, 
duenna, incisor, and Ned. A lease falls in when the people named 
in it die off; yet who but a poet-lawyer would call a lease ‘the 
silent record of a man’s demise? ” In the sixth line, why is the 
carping cynic credited with having an incisor, rather than the 
genial optimist ? Any reference to “incisive ” remarks ? 

C. T. W. guessed these last acrostic words, but the lights were 
for him only darkness. Beside our ordinary competitors, the 
Rey. Dr. McCartan of Wallsall kindly sent us the:true solution of 
No. 19. 

Before we hand over the next two Acrostics to the ingenious 
reader, we may mention that two friends enlightened us as to the 
“bookish theoric ” that Judge O’ Hagan contrasted in No. 18 with 
the simpler “rule of thumb.” One writes from Plymouth: ‘Look 
at Othello, Act I, Scene I (I think). The words are Iago’s, used 
to depreciate Michael Cassio’s knowledge or experience in military 


me. InAtters.”’ 





Clavis Acrostica. 


No. 21. 


To have me robbed a jovial roue cried, 

Who deeply drank, and just as deeply lied. 

To keep me full—a task found ofttimes vain — 
The rival party-chieftains fiercely strain. 


By big- wigged Doctors scorned, and overthrown, 
By cotton Lords I’m fostered as their own. 

I'm quick to calculate, I’m apt to speak— 

I think in figures, and I dream in Greek. 


1. Brightest of jewels, most resplendent, 
From blackest negro I am pendent, 

2. If Ali Baba had a Roman been, 
This number on his corps you would have seen. 

3. Ills I foretold ; but men withheld belief, 
And for their scorning often came to grief. 

4. Two armies met, and charged in mortal strife, 
They changed a dynasty, I lost my life. 

5. Where sunny Isles lie scattered on the Sea, 
Each maid’s heart fluttered as she thought of me. 

6. ‘‘I bet five pounds upon it!’’ ‘* Done! you win,” 
Again. ‘' Now, sir, you lose; I save my tin.” 

7. A grim old castle, ghosts, a rattling chain, 
Mysterious sounds, with awful shrieks of pain. 

8, Free me, Ye Powers, from Fenian plots I pray, 
And Yankee filibusters keep away ! 

9. In this fierce contest, and at Epsom too, 
Was well avenged the fight of Waterloo. 


No. 22. 


A lawless, robbing, wandering life hath led 
My second—but I quote a daft Divine. 
Like Omphale with Hercules, light thread 
Leads my strong first —I crown the custard fine. 


1. I follow on the frolics of the knight. 
.2. ‘The bar can ne’er forget my noble light. 
3. Poetasters me both last, and least indite. 


43 


( 44 ) 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


Several years ago we began our notices of the books of the month 
with the following remarks :— 

"The space allotted in our pages to the notices of the books sent 
for review has always been utterly inadequate to the worth and im- 
portance of many of those books. Some of then, if fitly examined, 
would occupy fully a third of our entire space. We have been obliged 
to stint ourselves to a mere paragraph or two, describing generally 
the plan and scopo of the book in question, and giving our opinion of 
its execution. We can claim for these book-notices the merit of 
sincerity, neither praising nor dispraising extravagantly or capriciously. 
‘The bovks for which we could not conscientiously venture on even the 
most cautious praise, we have, for the most part, passed over alto- 
gether, not thinking it quite right or Christian to amuse ourselves 
or others by trying to poke fun at even any particularly silly book 
that happened to stray across our path.”’ 

These remarks still hold good. This month especially there are 
several new publications which we should wish to review at consider- 
able length. The one that we place first will soon be the subject of a 
separate study; and the volume which follows it has already been 
introduced by anticipation to our readers. 


1. The Fatry Changeling and Other Poems. By Dora Sigerson (Mrs. 
Clement Shorter.) John Lane: London and New York. 

This volume of true poetry is brought out in a very artistic form. 
Its hundred pages contain about half as many poems, making the 
average a leaf for each poem. The one singled out for the title-page 
had hardly a right to expect such an honour, though it, too, has the 
note of quaint freshness and originality which marks the whole work. 
The majority of the pieces have an emphatically Celtic tone; and, even 
where the themes are old, there is a winning novelty about the treat- 
ment of them. But, fresh and youthful as they are, there is a depth 
of earnestness and maturity which shows a great advance upon 
‘‘Verses by Dora Sigerson,” published (we are surprised to find) five 
years ago. In a very eulogistic review of the volume before us in 
the Westminster Gazette many detached stanzas were given to justify 
the critic’s praise. Such fragments seem to us very unsatisfactory. 
More adequate samples will be furnished in the extended review 
which we have promised above, and which will show that in ‘* A 
Fairy Changeling and Other Poems ” the poetry of this closing 
century has been enriched by a volume of true and high inspiration, 








Notes on New Books. 45 


none the worse for its marked Irish accent. | 

2. Songs of Sion, By Mary Stanislaus MacCarthy, 0.8.D. (Dublin: 
Browne and Nolan). 

This is, externally, the handsomest volume that Dublin has 
produced for many a day. The ample page, the fine typography, the 
artistic binding, and the beautiful illustrations give it the appearance 
of an édilton de lure, so that, while holy enough to be read in a convent 
chapel, it is dainty enough to be laid on a drawingroom table. The 
verses of §.M.S. are true and highly finished poetry. The most 
poetical are some of the tributes to the memury vf departed friends. 
We shall make sure to refer to the criticisms passed upon this holy 
and beautiful volume; but for the present we must content ourselves 
with declaring our belief that it is fully worthy of the daughter of 
Denis Florence Mac Carthy. ° 


3. Tha Life of St. Augustine. By the Rev. Philip Burton, O.M. 
(Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son) 

This is the third edition, greatly enlarged, of one of the most solid 
and excellent books that Catholic Literature owes to Irish priests, 
Father Burton spent two years amid the scenes of St. Augustine’s 
life in order to prolong his own; and he made use of this opportunity 
and his enforced holidays to study the life and writings of this great 
Saint on the spot. In a space of time, very short for so largea 
volume, especially for one published in Ireland, a second edition was 
asked for; and now a third has been issued with very valuable 
additional matter. Not only Catholic critics but Protestant writers 
like the contributors to Zhe Church Quarterly Review have given 
unstinted praise to the labours of the Irish Vincentian Father. 
Fortunately his excellent matter is set forth in a clear and unaffected 
style. ‘The extracts from St. Augustine’s sermons will be read with 
delight by the devout faithful, and few will blame the printing for 
being (as it is) too large and legible. A map and an index make 
the book still more manageable. This and the late Father 
Mac Namara’s numerous and excellent books, which he reserved for 
the close of his life, form an important contribution on the part of the 
Irish sons of St. Vincent de Paul towards the fulfilment of the second 
great object of bis institute as indicated by the Church in the collect 
of his Mass. 

4. Illustrated Explanation of the Prayers and Ceremontes of the Mass. 
By the Rev. D. I, Lanslots, O.8.B. (Benziger: New York, Cincinnati, 
and Chicago). 

The devout faithful will appreciate, we trust, this excellent work 
which is brought out very differently from a work of the same sort 
which dates back more than a hundred years—Glover on the Mass. 





46 The Irish Monthly. 


Indeed the type used in this and some similar popular treatises seems 
needlessly large. A somewhat cheaper get-up would increase their 
sphere of usefulness, The late Archbishop of New Orleans, Dr. 
Jaussens, recommended Father Lanslots’ book in a brief and earnest 
preface. The pictures of the Priest in the different parts of Mass are 
very unlike the primitive little woodcuts that adorned the prayerbooks 
of long ago. There is at least one mistake which will probably never 
be noticed if not now: the position of the priest’s hands, and indeed 
of the burse, shows that the printer has transposed the labels of 
“& At the Epistle’’ and “ At the Post-Communion.” In place of 
“A.M.D.G.” at the ond, there is “U.I.0.G.D.” These initials 
puzzle us. 


5. Coming Events Cast their Shadows. A Tale of a Past Day. By 
A. A. Hyde. (London: Washbourne, 18 Paternoster Row). 

Dr. Johnson very properly scolded Miss Sophia Thrale for not 
giving her christian name in full. The omission on a titlepage leaves 
one in doubt as to the nuthor’s sex, and we are uncertain whether we 
are to thank Mr., Mrs., or Miss Hyde for laying the date of a tale of 
a past day no further back in the past than the year 1870. The 
persons concerned in the story are chiefly Euglish, with a French hero, 
but the scenes are laid in France. Tho style. indeed, is much too 
Frenchy. Long descriptions and long narrative paragraphs are 
written in the present tense, and an immense number of words and 
phrases are left untranslated which ought certainly to be in English. 
But there is merit in the story and a good deal of interest. ‘I'he 
publisher’s name is a guarantee that it is more than harmless, and 
that it is excellently produced 

We may name here two new Editions issued by the same Publisher. 
Cardinal Manning in 1867 prefixed a beautiful little preface to the 
Life of St. Francis of Assisi translated from St. Bonaventure by Miss 
Lockhart, sister of the well-remembered Father William Lockhart, aud 
herself the author of an excellent Life of St. Teresa. In thirty years 
it has reached a fourth edition. Some one is greatly to blame for 
letting the titlepage be disfigured by the impossible phrase “ Legenda 
Santa Francisci.” It is a very holy hook written by a Saint about a 
Saint. 

In a shorter time the ‘Solid Virtue” of Father Bellecius, S.J. 
has reached a fifth edition. It is a very solid book in every sense of 
the term. The preface of Dr. Croke, Archbishop of Cashel, has helped 
the success of this translation, which we owe to an Ursuline Nun of 
Thurles. 

The name of the same Publisher is on the titlepage of a very tiny 
é“ Life of St. John of the Cross, Founder of the Carmelite Reform,” by 











Notes on New Books. 47 


a Religious of St. Mary’s Convent, York. with preface by Father 
Joseph Rickaby, 8.J. 

6. Angels of the Battlefield. 4 History of the Labours of the Catholic 
Sisterhoods in the late Civil War. By George Barton. (Philadelphia: 
Catholic Art Publishing Company). 

The author of this stately volume begins his preface by stating 
that its object is ‘to present in as compact and comprehensive a form 
as possible the history of the Catholic Sisterhoods in the late Civil 
War.” The comprehensiveness is more evident than the compactness, 
for the story is told in three hundred of the largest pages of royal 
octavo and in sufficiently economical type that compresses much 
matter into a single page. The details gathered together with pious 
industry are most interesting and edifying, and they are arranged 
very skilfully. There are some twenty full-page illustrations extremely 
well executed. Many of these, and indeed a good part of the voluma 
itself, will appeal more emphatically to American readers. But the 
work as a whole is excellent in every way, and deserves the patronage 
of Catholics in all English-speaking countries. 

7. The frish Difficulty: Shall and Will. By Gerald Molloy, D.D., 
D.8c. (Blackie and Sons, Limited: London, Glasgow, and Dublin). 

Monsignor Molloy has arranged in a very clear and agreeable 
manner materials gathered together with great industry and dis- 
crimination. With regard to the substance of the work, he has more 
than obeyed the nine years dictum of Horace. The great mass of 
examples and illustrations which he has marshalled so skilfully in 
groups are most interesting for their own sake. The reader who consults 
the book with the practical object of learning when to use ‘‘shall” 
would do well to follow the advice given in page 62, which calls 
attention to the three chief rules and gives the consoling assurance 
that these can be easily mastered in an hour, even by one who 
could not follow the minute collation of the various translations of the 
Bible as regards their use of these twin auxiliaries. A particularly in- 
teresting item is Lord Coleridge’s letter at page 92 about his famous 
Would you be surprised to hear? in the cross examination of the 
Tichbourne Claimant. Many Irishmen have grown up to men’s estate 
without having ever once summoned the auxiliary sali to their aid. 
Dr. Molloy very properly advises such to stick to their old wil unless 
they are quite sure that shall is right; for a shall in the wrong place 
has more of the air of ignorant affectation. We shall watch with 
interest the reception accorded by the Saxon critics to this scholarly 
and ingenious work of an Irish priest. 

8. Ireland, with Other Poems. By Lionel Johnson. (London: 
Elkin Mathows). 





48 The Irish Monthly. 


We have kept Mr. Johnson’s previous volume of ‘‘ Poems ” beside 
us for many months past in the hope of introducing it to our readers. 
Mr. Johnson, though a very young man, is very favourably known as 
a critic in the literary world of London ; and, when he in turn gave 
the critics a chance, they had nothing but high praise to bestow upon 
him, as will be seen in the last four pages of the new volume which 
are crammed with extracts from Zhe Times, Sa'urday Review, Academy, 
Atheneum, and two dozen other journals of Kvgland, Ireland, France, 
and the United States. We of course rejuice all the more at this 
hearty recognition of the young poet because he puts forward in the 
front his devotion to the Catholic Church and Ireland, though he was 
born in neither. Some readers will be somewhat repelled at first by 
the classic austerity of his poetic style, but no one can fail to perceive 
his superiority to most of the verse-writers of the day in the nobility 
of his themes, the stateliness and refinement of his diction, and the 
fervour of his inspiration. His nature has a great capacity for 
various enthusiasms. Some of his best poetry is linked with Julian 
the Apostate and Cromwell, with Oxford and London, while he begins 
with Ireland and reaches, if not his highest, his very sweetest, in 
“Our Lady of the May.” 


9. Benziger Brothers of New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago, are 
now, as far as our knowledge goes, the most active and most spirited 
of all Catholic publishers on either side of the Atlantic. Of their last 
batch of publications, the most interesting is one that does not seem 
to be for sale but is a mere advertisement ; namely, their “ Portrait 
Catalogue of Catholic Authors,” which they say they will be glad to 
send free by mail to any address. .1t is indeed confined tothe authors 
whose publications appear in their own list. Of each of these a life- 
like vignette portrait is given, evidently from authorised photographs, 
with the autograph signature underneath. Seventy-three authors are 
thus represented; and in addition, apropos of their emphatic 
approbation of Benziger’s unabridged edition of Hunolt’s Sermons, 
we have portraits of sixteen Cardinals and Bishops, Irish, English, 
and American. In the nine instances of which we have personal 
knowledge of writers or prelates, we can testify to the fidelity with 
which features and handwriting are reproduced. The place and date 
of birth are given, except in the case of a few ladies; and altogether 
this mere publishers’ Catalogue is quite an interesting literary 
gallery, which many will be glad to perserve. 

Amongst the recent additions to the Benziger collection are three 
books translated from the German of Emmy Giehrl, whom the 
aforesaid catalogue states to have been born in 1837 at Munich where 
she still resides. Besides her two short Stories, “The Three Little 








Notes on New Books. 49 


Kings”? and “ Master Fridolin,’’ we have here a substantial volume 
translated by the Sisters of St. Joseph, Indianapolis, ‘ Blossoms of the 
Cross, dedicated to my dear companions in sickness and suffering for 
their pious entertainment.” The recommendatory preface of Dr. 
Chatard, Bishop of Vincennes, is dated February, 1834. A second 
edition has since been called for, while in Germany the first edition 
was exhausted, not in four years but in four months. Itis a very 
interesting and edifying book and will comfort many a suffering soul, 
especially chronic invalids like the Author, who begins her preface 
with these words :—‘‘ It is twenty-five years since God placed me on 
this bed of sickness which I have not since left.” 

Both the stories that we have just mentioned have a special Christmas 
flavour about them. Still more is this flavour discernible in “' Buzzer’s 
Christmas,’’ by Mary T. Waggaman, a very pleasant and pretty little 
story, which we almost prefer to the more ambitious effort of the same 
author, ‘‘Tom’s Luck-pot.”” Why had not Mrs. Waggaman the 
humility and good sense to get some Irish friend to correct the brogue 
of her ‘‘apple-cheeked Irish nurse?” No Irish peasant says state 
for sweet or howly for holy ; he may transform priest into preesht, but 
never into praste; and why is sure spelled here shure, as if Mrs. 
Waggaman or anybody else pronounced it without the aspirate ? 

Another rame in Benzigers’ Portrait Catalogue is Marion Ames 
Taggart, to whose clever ‘‘ Blissylvania Pust-office’’ we lately gave 
the heartiest praise. Miss Taggart’s new booklets, ‘‘ Aser the 
Shepherd” and ‘ Bezaleel,” are of a very different kind from her 
previous work, and appeal to the mature taste. Aser is a five-year- 
child on the first Christmas night, and tells us what he saw then and 
afterwards; Bezaleel is the young man on whom Jesus looked with 
love but who went away sad because he had great possessions. He 
leads us on to Calvary. These elegant little quartos have frontis- 
pieces engraved with that softness and finish that we are used to in 
the best American magazines; and the stories are very feelingly and 
gracefully written. But we plead guilty to an aversion for all tales that 
introduce gospel characters, and we have never been able to read 
Lew Wallace’s " Ben Hur,” which is said to be the best of them. 

The last volume in Benzigers’ list this month is “The Illustrated 
Life of the Blessed Virgin,” written in German by the Rev. B. 
Rohner, 0.8.B., and “adapted” (better often than translated) by 
the Rev. Richard Brennan, LL.D. It consists of nearly four hundred 
pages of solid and excellent matter, excellently printed and bound, 
and illustrated copiously with good pictures of scenes in Our Lady’s 


10. We led our readers some months ago to expect Mr. David J. 
Von, Exvi. No. 295 4 


20 





50 The Irish Monthly 


O’Donoghue’s work on the Life and Writings «f James Clarence 
Mangan. It has now appeared in a fine octavo volume, placing first 
on its titlepage the Edinburgh firm of ‘Patrick Geddes and 
Colleagues ” which has lately attracted notice by the very artistically 
produced ‘‘ Evergreen” and other very original exponents of the 
Celtic Renaissance. The present work, however, is altogether of 
Irish mauufacture, and associates with the Professor-Publisher, M. 
H. Gill and Son, and some American firms. Tho author was lately 
styled in Zhe Sun ‘‘the amazing bookman,” and indeed, the variety 
and minuteness of Mr. O’Donoghue’s bibliographical knowledge are 
amazing. He has gathered together from the most recondite sources 
every little fragment of information bearing upon the career and 
character of the author of “Dark Rosaleen.” His work and Miss 
Guiney’s recent collection supplement one another and give us all 
that is necessary—some think more than is necessary or desirable— 
about our gifted but unhappy countryman. The frontispiece is the 
Poet’s portrait with his exquisitely neat autograph signature. We 
have also pictures of the house in which he was born, the house in 
which he worked as a scrivener, and Sir Frederick Burton’s drawing 
of his head after death, which is now in the National Gallery of 
Ireland. 

11. Baby Lays. By A. Stow and E. Calvert. (London: Elkin 
Mathews). 

We do not wonder that this book of rhymes and pictures has 
already reached its second thousand. The rhymes are very funny, 
and the pictures are funnier still. Some of them are really very 
clever and produce a great effect with a few strokes. In the joint 
authorship the initial of the first name, we believe, stands for Adah, 
but we are not sure that, as regards ‘‘E. Calvert,” we are right in 
expressing our expectation and desire to meet Miss Calvert soon again. 


12. Zhe Rise of Democracy. By J. Holland Rose, M.A. (Blackie 
and Son, Limited ; London, Glasgow and Dublin). 

This is the first of the Victorian Era Series which it is proposed to 
publish in monthly half-crown volumes, and of which the object is 
“to form a record of the great movements and developments of the 
age, in politics, economics, religion, industry, literature, science and 
art, and of the life-work of its typical and influential men.” The 
general editor of the series is the author of this first volume. He treats 
in a very interesting manner of Radicalism, the agitation for 
parliamentary Reform, chartism, freedom of the Press, and other 
cognate subjects. In his preface he apvloyises for not treating of Irich 
affairs, and promises that this and other topics will he handled in 
future volumes of the series; but though eleven of these volumes 











Notes on Nei Books. ol 


are mentioned definitely as in preparation, there is no reference to 
Ireland in any of them. The names of some of the authors guarantee 
excellent work. 


13. The Art and Book Company of London and Leamington alone, 
or in conjunction with the Catholic Truth Society, have published 
several interesting and edifying works. Some of them are reprints, 
such as ““Íhe Diurual of the Soul, or Maxims and Examples of the 
Saints for every day in the year,” which Ambrose Phillips de Lisle 
translated from the Italian some fifty years ago. 

Another new edition is Father Bertrand Wilberforce’s Dominican 
Missions and Martyrs in Japan. The name of the Art and Book 
Company alone appears on the titlepage of ‘‘ The Apostle of England, 
a sermon preached at the Centenary Celebration, Ebbs Fleet, September 
4th, 1897,” by the Right Rev. John Cuthbert Hedley, O.8.B. 
Bishop of Newport. 

From the same firm we have ‘Sister Apolline Andriveau and the 
Scapular of the Passion,” translated from the French by Lady Herbert. 
Sixty pages are given to the Life of the holy nun, and twice as many 
to her Letters. 

Amongst the special recent publications of the Catholic Truth 
Society the most important is “To Oalvary through the Mass” by the 
Rev. Eric William Leslie, S.J. This very original and pious treatise 
is made more interesting by a very effective story-like setting in which 
Father Eskdale, Michael O'Gorman, George Bold and others figure. 
Other additions to the C. T. S. literature are a lecture on Paris for use 
with the magic lantern, and a very beautiful homily on the Immaculate 
Conception. 

14. Our diminishing space forces us to group together two or three 
unbound pamphlets, of which the most interesting is No. 1 of a home 
magazine for Australian Children of Mary, called Madonna and edited 
by the Rev. Michael Watson, S.J. Another isa Full Report of the 
Proceedings at the Irish Literary Festival held in the Rotunda, Dublin, 
May 17, 1897. Dr. Douglas Hyde’s ode and Miss Norma Borthwick’s 
prize essay are given in Irish, and a great many other similar items 
which we are alas! unable to particularise, as they are written in an 
unknown tongue, Bernard Doyle, Ormond Quay, Dublin, prints and 
publishes the preceeding as well as ‘‘Songs and Ballads of ’98,” 
several of which are in the Irish language, and, finally, '' he Catapult, 
or Anti-Humbug up to date,” by B. Magennis, dealing chiefly with 
politics and personalities into which we are forbidden to enter. 

15. Our concluding paragraph can do little more than name three 
books issued by three separate publishers not namei as yet in these 
book-notes. Fallon and Co. of Dublin publish the ‘‘Th rd School 


52 The Irah Monthly. 


Reader ” in the School and College Series edited by the Rev. T. A. 
Finlay, S.J. . It is quite an admirable book, giving a great deal of 
sound knowledge of various subjects in a most attractive style. A 
pretty frontispiece, many very well executed pictures through the 
book, and fine type set all off to advantage. Burns and Oates give 
for two shillings the best and most readable edition of the New Testa- 
ment that we have ever seen. Lastly, the Ave Mart. Press of Notre 
Dame, Indiana, has issued in book-form Mr. Charles Warren 
Stoddard’s graphic biography of St. Antony under the title of ‘‘ The 
Wonder-worker of Padua.” . 

After we had written the word “ lastly,’’ we received ‘' Islam 
before the Turk, a Narrative Essay,” by Mr. Joseph J. Nunan, Ex- 
Scholar R.U.I., and Blake Scholar, T.C.D. Mr. Nunan has condensed 
into sixty pages a great mass of facts bearing on his theme. He 
might perhaps have treated it more effectively by more judicious 
selection of matter and a more strenuous effort after order and 
simplicity. In a grave historical disquisition the rather frequent 
snatches of verse seem out of place. ‘his very meritorious opusculum 
could not have a more tasteful form than its publisher, Mr. Edward 
Ponsonby, Grafton Street, Dublin, has given to it. 


OUR LADY OF CONSOLATION. 


I” that same sunny land of Provence where the angels used to 
come and visit Saint Mary Magdalen, on the coast, over- 
looking the Mediterranean, there is a shrine of the Blessed Virgin 
Mary, known as Our Lady of Consolation. There it stands, on 
the crest of the olive-crowned hill, looking down on the quiet 
little town of Hyéres, with its nest of old houses clinging together 
up the side of the opposite slope, until the view is shut in by the 
ruins of the old castle on the top of the rock. From the other 
side it is quite a different sight that meets our gaze, for below us 
lies the wondrous blue sea, and here and there are dotted the 
golden Isles of Hyéres, shining out like jewels from the 
sapphire hue of the waters. It is with this blue sea that the 
legend of Our Lady of Consolation chiefly has to deal. 
Many centuries ago, all Europe was ablaze with a noble fire ; 





Our Lady of Consolation. 53 


there was a breath of enthusiasm in the air, serf vied with noble 
in ardour to be among the first to deliver the Holy Sepulchre from 
the hands of the Infidels. France, having at her head her saintly 
king, Louis IX, responded nobly to the call. Quiet villages were 
awakened by the olang cf arms and all the preparations of a 
warlike departure. Hyéres was not behind, for was not its 
zuzerain, Charles d’Anjou, own brother to the hing, and to him 
belonged the lordly castle on the hill? In the August of 1248, 
the brave warriors set out, leaving many an aching heart to watch 
for their return. Two years swept by, and wives and mothers 
wept as they heard first of the ravages of the pest, then of the | 
captivity of the King. There was one among them, who, when 
she knew that her son was a prisoner, turned her thoughts and 
hopes above and earnestly entreated Our Lady of Consolation to 
hear her prayers. There was then no church crowning the hill- 
side, but many a weary day, with aching feet, and still more 
aching heart, the faithful mother toiled up the steep and rough 
roadway, for it was from the summit that her eyes could search 
the great Mediterranean, ever expectant of that white sail which 
was to restore to her her beloved son. As she emerged from the 
shut in path, and saw the blue vista that spread out before her, 
the sight must have brought to her hope itself. It was then that 
her heart turned to that other Mother who had stood for three 
long hours beside the Cross during the agony of her Divine Son ; 
fervently she implored her to restore to her her child, and made a 
vow, that, if her prayer were answered, she would erect a church 
in her honour on that very spot, and call it “ Our Lady of 
Consolation.”’ Her faith met with its reward; she was one of the 
happy few who was to know, while still on earth, the blessedness 
of those words: “Ask and you shall receive;’’ for her prayer 
was answered in the very way she begged. We do not know 
where the glad tidings found her ; if it was down below, on her 
knees in the old parish church, or at her usual post, gazing out to 
sea. Perhaps she was the first to spy in the far distance the ship 
With its precious burden; and what suspense until she knew her 
son was among those on board, and that the weary watching had 
come to end at last! With him was the holy King and his band 
of brave Crusaders; and earnestly they thanked God for His 
goodness in rescuing them from so great perils by land and sea. 
This joyful return took p'ace on the 12th July, 1254. Once more 


b4 The Irish Monthly. 


the mother climbed the hill, but this time not alone; and without 
doubt it was the good king himself who marked out, with his own 
royal hands, the place where the future church was to stand. 
Soon it rose, bringing with it hope and consolation to all those 
who live under its shadow. It was a privileged spot, when Our 
Lady loved to answer the prayers of her children. Many miracles 
took place; in their every difficulty the inhabitants of Hyéres 
invoked with confidence their Lady of Consolation, the good 
Mother they love to call her. Princes and nobles brought her 
costly offerings from afar. Most of these treasures disappeared 
in the troubled times of the great Revolution. Our Lady’s shrine 
was not spared by sacrilegious hands, but the miraculous statue 
was placed in safety. The church at the present time is adorned 
with innumerable ex-votos, dating from 1612 and continuing with- 
out interruption, even through the terrible years of the end of the 
eighteenth century, up till now. The walls are lined with these 
little pictures, in which the humble artist has naively depicted the 
scene of the miracle: children saved from the flames, men in 
imminent danger of being run over, the sick brought back as it 
were from the grave. The lack of skill would make us smile, were 
it not for the great faith the pictures evince, and each has a 
touching significance all its own; for does not each one point to 
some bitter moment in a life’s history, when all would have 
perished, had not Our Lady stretched out her hand to rescue? In 
all of them she is visibly represented, as if to show us that it 1s to 
her the donor owes his favour. Here, again, are tokens of a 
different kind; little boats carefully carved, telling their tale of 
peril by sea; there are crutches, happily no longer needed ; a 
little farther on, a memento of the happy day of a first communion; 
then, a chaplet of orange blossoms, we wonder if it was placed 
there in thankfulness by a bride of earth or a bride of heaven. 
Several times, when the neighbouring towns and villages have 
been menaced by some great scourge, the inhabitants have come 
to the shrine in solemn pilgrimage, and it has not been in vain. 
Thus it was in the cholera years, 1835, 1854, and 1865. Also 
when there has heen a great drought, as in 1818 and 1868. An 
old chronicle tells us, that in 1768, the want of rain was so great 
that the wheat was dying in the ground. Processions were 
ordered; on the 17th May, they came in solemn pilgrimage, both 
mon ond women barefooted, and as they turned out of the parish 





al 


Our Ladg of Consolation. 55 


church to ascend the hill, chanting plaintive litanies, a gentle rain 
began to fall—the good Mother had had pity on her children. 

They have now placed her statue above the porch, facing 
Toulon; it can be seen from many miles around, the hands out- 
stretched with a gesture of protection; and to all who raise their 
eyes to it, it stands as a sign of hope. On the feasts of the 
Annunciation and the Assumption solemn Mass is sung. Crowds 
come from all parts around; there is hardly standing room in the 
church. The miraculous statue, dressed in magnificent garments 
and adorned with jewels, is taken down from its place by the 
altar put at the bottom of the choir steps, within easy reach of the 
pilgrims who press around, each bringing his offering of a candle 
or a bouquet, until the ground is piled high with the fragrant 
flowers of the South. 

On other days it is quite different, and the pilgrim who comes 
to kneel at the feet of the Holy Mother and Her Divine Child, 
hears not a sound or a murmur to disturb his prayer. Gradually 
the infinite peace of the holy place steals into his heart, he lays 
his life’s burden at Our Lady’s feet and rises comforted. The 
road to the shrine is an image of life itself; very rough and steep, 
cheered here and again by several flowers, but ever rising steeper 
as it nears the goal. So it is with us. But when the last moment 
comes, when we have finished for ever the bitter life-struggle, and 
look out with wondering eyes on the great sea of Eternity, may 
we then, like the pilgrim, find Our Lady of Consolation awaiting 
us! With her beside us we have nothing to fear, for she will 
take us by the hand and lead our faltering steps to Him who has 
opened for us the gates of Heaven,—her own dear Son. 


Eva BILUuNGTON. 


(56). 


WINGED WORDS. 


It is hard to do one’s duty for duty 's sake. Before, I had 
Love to help me.—W. G. 

The world is every day growing more worldly ; it ties us down 
by more and stronger cords, and to break them requires bolder and 
more assiduous effort.— W. &. Gladstone. 

God sets the soul long, weary, perhaps impossiktle tasks; yet 
is satisfied by the first sincere proof that obedience is intended, and 
takes the burden away forthwith.—Corentry Patmure. 

People think those the wisest who agree with themselves.— 
Rosa Mulholland Gilbert. : ' 

Grief that is most unselfish is always hardest to bear. A selfish 
heart will comfort itself with the little merciful compensations 
which life is ever providing ; but the heart that aches for another 
cannot even relish peace while evil has hold of the one beloved.— 
The Same. 

Responsibility educates.— Wendell Philips. 

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to 
have a striving good enough to be called a failure.— George Eliot. 

I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking 
upward. What I have and ought to do is very distinctly laid out 
for me; what I want and pray for, is strength to perform it.— 
Charlotte Bronte. 

Civilfzation is not dominion, wealth, material luxury; nay, not | 
even a great literature and education widespread,—good though | 
those things be, Its true signs are thought for the poor and 
suffering; chivalrous regard and respect for women; the frank 
recognition of human brothorhood, irrespective of race of color or 
nation or religion; the narrowing of the domain of mere force as 
a governing factor in the world; the love of ordered freedom, 
abhorrence of what is mean and cruel and vile ; ceaseless devotion ' 

to the claims of justice. Civilization in that, its true, its highest 
sense, must make for peace.—Lord Russell of Killowen. i 

The art of forgetting is a blessed art; but the art of overlooking 
is quite as important. And, if we should take time to write down 
, the origin, progress, and outcome of a few of our troubles, it 
would make us so ashamed of the fuss we make over them that we 
should be glad to drop such things and bury them at once in 
sternal forgetfulness.— Anon. 





FEBRUARY, 1808. 





SOME NOTES ON “MACBETH.” 


I.—‘ Tue Lyceum Í[DEA.” 


a Hoe a critic to say anything of Shakspere that has not 

been said already is about as hard as it would be for a 
poet to sing a new song about the sun.” Nevertheless, by a 
rearrangement of old impressions we gain a new sense of life. 
Something may yet be done in Shaksperian criticism through a 
selection: of what is greatest, and an endeavour to harmonize or 
render coherent the mass of opinion apparently diverse, of those 
minds whose differences of thought are mainly due to their having 
approached their subject from different sides. 

Yet it is not for this reason I would say anything on the play 
of Macbeth. So far as I know, none of the great tragedies have 
been less the subject of varying opinion amongst Shakspere critics, 
either from the ethical standpoint, or from the view of character 
study: and what is true of its exponents in the study seems to be 
also true in the main of its exponents on the stage. The acting 
of Shakspere, more than the criticism of his works, has beea over- 
laden by a mass of tradition, the value of which it is impossible 
now to estimate; but one may fairly doubt whether stage tradition, 
as a conventional force, has helped us towards a closer realization 
of Shakspere’s intention. This would be an interesting question 
to examine, had one the material available, but having alluded to 
it we may let it pass. To me it seems that the character of 
Macbeth, as handed down by stage tradition, and expressed by 
the acting of this century, has been of all Shakspere’s chief rdles 
the most stereotyped in the manner of its presentment. Hamlet, 
from the earliest days of Shaksperian criticism and acting alike, 

Vou, xxvi. No. 296 Ó 


58 The Irish Monthly 


has been acknowledged a sufficiently baffling study to discover 
and set forth the main motives of his action or inaction, “ to 
know his stops, to sound him from his lowest note to the top of 
his compass,” or “to pluck out the heart of his mystery.” But 
to judge from writing and stage tradilion, Macbeth has not so 
puzzled either critic or actor. To show the ruin, moral and physical, 
of a brave soldier once honest and loyal to his king, caught in 
the toils of ambition and spurred on to murder and regicide by 
an evil woman has contented actor and critic alike for two 
centuries. Enough for the actor if, in the earlier scenes, he could 
enlist sympathy by splendour of courageous bearing, and then 
by swift collapse into a besotted criminal, give us the sense of 
tragedy and catastrophe. So much has this been the oase that 
from the stage point of view the play of Macbeth for life or death 
depended hitherto not on the acting of the title-réle, but on the 
acting of Lady Macbeth. If only a great genius, a Siddons ora 
Ristori, could be found to play the wife’s part, any average actor, 
granting him to be sufficiently “ strong in the part,” to usea stage 
expression, was counted good enough for the title-réle. We all 
know the amount of intellectual analysis required for the part by 
stage tradition: a man full of animal courage, but duped by 
witch-craft and ruled by a terrible wife: a part which gave great 
chances to the actor who reserved his powers for the telling scenes 
of melodramatic interest—the murder of Duncan, the scene with 
Banquo’s ghost, the “ cauldron scene ” as it is termed on the stage, 
and the good “ ding-dong fight ’’ at the close, which, if sufficiently 
prolonged, made the pit to rise, and brought down the gods :—a 
scene to delight the heart of Mr. Vincent Crummles himself. 
Such, baldly stated, would seem to have been the stage tradition of 
centuries. 
If such a view of the part be justified by the text, the play as 
a whole must degenerate into the least ethical of Shakspere’s 
tragedies. That a man, loyal at heart, fresh from a battlefield 
where he has fought for his king, and conquered through his 
immense bravery, should suddenly at a hint from three old women, - 
and the urging of his wife firing his ambition, plunge into a very 
debauch of murder, is so crude and revolting an idea that to 
accept it as being justified by the text is as much as to doubt 
whether the work is from the same hand that had fashioned | 
Hamlet and was about to create Lear. Or on the other hand to | 





Some. Notes on Macbeth. 59 


accept the belief that such was Shakspere’s intention would 
amount to saying that in this one play he was content to abandon 
this earth and all therein to Hecate and to Lucifer. And itis 
precisely because in none of his plays is Shakspere at such pains to 
rescue us from this opinion as he is in Macbeth, it will be of 
interest to note the method by which he does go, and thus perhaps 
to come to something like an estimete of the genius of the great 
living Actor, whose exposition of the part has done more to place 
the play as a whole on the ethical level which it deserves, than 
has the writing of any or of all the critics taken together. 

On the spiritual significance of the Witches, Professor Dowden 
has brought us of any of the critics nearest tle central idea of 
Shakspere, and for our study it will be well to quote bim in full. 
But before doing so I wil! note one significant element in the 
tragedy, its atmosphere. Elsewhere Shakspere has been at pains to 
create for us atmospheres in which spiritual forces become manifest. 
In the wood without the walls of Athens, or rather in the woods 
of Charlecote Hall by Stratford, we may dream of Oberon, Titania, 
and Puck, those wayward and delightful “shadows” that smile 
to us a farewell as they tremble and melt into the first sunbeams of 
the morning. By the murmuring surge that chafes around the 
magic island of Prospero, the doers of Ariel’s bidding foot it 
featly on the yellow sands or fill the isle with noises. Yet they 
are but the creations of Prospero’s magic, and if we question 
him as to their substance, he tells us that we ourselves are little 
more than they—“ such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little 
life is rounded by a sleep.” Upon the starlit platform of Elsinore 
the veil between us and the spiritual world is lifted ; and Shakspere 
for the time gives an adherence to the doctrine of Purgatory. 
The Ghost in Hamlet is reality, we are not allowed to question 
whether he is only the creation of the Prince’s disordered brain, 
he appears to Horatio and to Marcellus ; yet heis not materialised, 
he is invisible to the Queen, But when all is said, it must be 
confessed that this creation is no confession on Shakspere’s part 
of belief in a spiritual world existing without us, and sending at 
times into the world of matter faint whispers or startling 
manifestations; he is the Ghost of an artist only, not necessarily 
ofa believer. When Shakspere sets himself to confess his belief 
in the existence of spiritual powers without us, he incarnates them 
in tangible material. He will not let us explain away their 


60 The Irwh Monthly. 


existence with the aid of any scientific or metaphysical subtleties. 
A woman sainted by wrong and sorrow patiently endured, sleep- 
ing and dreaming upon her deathbed hag a vision of angels, who 
show her the crown that isin store for her: it may be but a dream, 
yet Shakspere brings the angels before our eyes as we watch her. 
But the fact as Shakspere sees it is the ecstatic smile that plays 
upon the dying Queen’s lips.* The powers of evil are abroad in 
the air, the gates of Hell stand open, but the embodiment thereof 
are the three Witches of Macbeth. There on that blasted heath 
of the northern land which nurtures to this day a race who still 
strive to peer into the twilight of the Unseen, and create among 
themselves an atmosphere of the occult world, Shakspere has made 
his confession of faith in the existence of a spiritual world that 
acts upon us for good or for evil, and he has embodied his belief 
in the persons of these three hags. 


“It need hardly be once more repeated that the Witches of Macbeth are not 
the broom-stick witches of vulgar tradition. If they are grotesque, they are also 
sublime. The weird sisters of our dramatist may take their place beside the 
terrible old women of Michael Angelo who spin the destinies of man. Shakspere 
is no more afraid than Michael Angelo of being vulgar. It is the feeble, 
sentimental-ideal artist who is nervous about the dignity of his conceptions, and 
who in aiming at the great, attains only grandiose ; he thins away all that is 
positive and material in the hope of discovering some novelty of shadowy horror. 
But the great ideal artists—Michael Angelo, Dante, Blake, Beethoven—see things 
far more dreadful than the vague horrors of the romanticist; they are perfectly 
fearless in their use of the material, the definite, the gross, the so-called vulgar, 
And thus Shakepere fearlessly shows us his weird sisters, ‘the goddesses of 
destinies’ brewing infernal charms in their wicked cauldron. We cannot quite 
dispense in this life with ritualism, and the ritualism of evil is foul and ugly; the 
hell-broth which the witches are brewing bubbles up with no refined, spiritual 
poison ; the quintessence of mischief is being brewed out of foul things which can 
be enumerated ; “thick and slab’ the gruel must be made. Yet these weird sisters 
remain terrible and sublime. They tingle in every fibre with evil energy, as the 
tempest does with the electric current; their malignity is inexhaustible; they are 
wells of sin springing up into everlasting death; they have their raptures and 
extacies in crime; they snatch with delight at the relics of impiety and foul 
disease ; they are the awful inspirers of murder, insanity, and suicide. 

‘‘The weird sisters, says Gervinus, ‘are simply the embodiment of inward 
temptation.’ They are surely much more than this. . . . . We move through 
the world subject to forces of evil and of good outside ourselves. We are caught 
up at times upon a stream of virtuous force, a beneficent current which bears us 
onward towards an abiding place of joy, of purity, and of self-sacrifice; or a 
counter current drifts us towards darkness, cold and death. And therefore no 
great realist in art has hesitated to admit the existence of what Theologians name 
Divine Grace, and what Theologians namo Satanio Temptation. There isin truth 


* Henry viii. 





Some Notes on Macbeth. 61 


no such thing as ‘naked manhood.’ . . . . And between the evil within and 
the evil without subsists a terrible sympathy and reciprocity. There is in the 
atmosphere a zymotic poison of sin; and the constitution which is morally enfeebled 
supplies appropriate nutriment for the germs of disease; while the hardy moral 
natare repels the same germs. Macbeth is infected; Banquo passes free.’’* 


“Observe,” Professor Dowden goes on, “ that the last words of 
the witches in the opening scene of the play, are the first words which 
Macbeth himself utters: 


‘ Fair is foul and foul is fair, 
Hover through the fog and filthy air. . . .’ 


Macbeth.‘ So foul and fair a day I have not seen.’ 
Shakspere intimates by this that although Macbeth has not 
yet set eyes upon these hags, the connection is already established 
between his soul and them. ‘Their spells have already wrought 
upon his blood.”+ I believe that Shakspere means even more: 
than this. He means to indicate that in the atmosphere created 
by these evil ones the guilty soul of Macbeth becomes sensitised 
to phenomena and impulses from without, and responds to them 
even before he is mentally conscious of the agents who produce 
them. On the other hand, whilst Macbeth stands gazing in 
wonder into the clouded elements of foulness and evil that 
enwrap them, the stronger moral nature of Banquo is unaffected, 
he is the first to see the witches, and he sees simply the three 
women, grotesque, bearded and hideous, just as they are 
materially, standing in the chill and mist-laden air of the north. 
“To Banquo they are objective. ‘They are outside himself, and he 
can observe and describe their strange aspect, their wild attire, 
and their mysterious gesture.” f 

Macbeth is lost in the vague sensation we feel when that 
which is strange seems to be familiar, and to have happened 
before. He doubts their objective reality and his first words are 
an entreaty: “speak if you can; what are you?” It is on the 
third “haill!” of the witches naming him as the future King 
that Macbeth “ starts,” and the “start,” is of such a nature as to 
provoke the comment of Banquo. It is the start of terror, not of 


surprise. ‘‘Itisa full revelation of his criminal aptitudes that 
® Professor Dowden, Shakspere, His Mind and Art. p. 244 and seq. 


+ Ibid. p! 249, 
1 Ibid. p. 250. 





62 The Irish Monthly, 


so startles and surprises him,” says Mr. Hudson. ‘ And besides 
this,” adds Professor Dowden, “ Macbeth is startled to find that 
there is a terrible correspondence established between the baser 
instincts of his own heart and certain awful external agencies of 
evil. . . . . Shakspere does not believe in the sudden 
transformation of a noble and loyal soul into that of a traitor and 
murderer. At the outset Macbeth possesses no real fidelity to 
things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely. He is simply not 
yet in alliance with the powers of evil. He has aptitudes for 
goodness, and ‘aptitudes for crime. Shakspere felt profoundly 
that this careless attitude of suspense between virtue and vice 
cannot continue long. The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, 
and the violent take it by force. Those who lack energy of good- 
ness, and drop into a languid neutrality between the antagonist 
.spiritual forces of this world, must serve the devil as slaves, if 
they will not decide to serve God as freemen.” * 

In the face of a thought such as this, so beautifully uttered, 
it will appear only a paltry impertinence to say that this was not 
Shakepere’s intention at all. Yet the object of this paper is to 
say so, and it must be said. Shakspere does not need his great 
critic’s apology for having suddenly converted Macbeth into a 
murderer, since he clearly tells you that there was no conversion 
whatever, for the reason that Macbeth was a murderer at heart 
before he met the witches; and if you will only carefully follow 
the text you will see this without a doubt. 

Is there not too much stress laid on Macbeth’s loyalty ? He, 
next but one in direct succession to the throne of Scotland, 
fought and killed in battle the rebel MacDonwald, and after- 
wards (so says Ross) beat back the invasion of the King of Norway, 
aided by the traitor-thane of Cawdor. As a matter of fact, 
the scenet in which Macbeth’s prowess is told is not from 
Shakspere’s hand: Macbeth has vanquished Cawdor and in the 
very next scene Shakspere makes him to say—‘the thane of 
Cawdor lives, a prosperous gentieman.”” How the discrepancy 
crept in is not of moment: but Shakspere did not at any 
rate interest himself with either Macbeth’s loyalty, or with 
his bravery. We may readily grant him the fierceness of 
physical courage in battle, but that is no virtue, whatever Mr. 
Ruskin may say. Maobeth’s loyalty amounts to that of a 


* Ibid. p, 260. t Macbeth, Act I., Scene II. 


Some Notes on Macbeth. 63 


man who sees the chances of his own succession to the throue at 
stake: and to sit on the throne of Scotland had become the 
master-passion of Macbeth’s existence before the play opens. 
This passion of ambition he had shewn to his wife ; in her presence 
he had sworn that if time and place gave him the opportunity 
(and to achieve his end he would make both) even the necessary 
murder of the King would not deter him from going onward to 
the goal of his criminal ambition. Returning from his victories 
against the invader and rebel, he meets the witches, and is awe- 
stricken at the discovery that the agencies of evil, outside himself, 
are acquainted with the criminal intention to which he is dedicated. 
We must suppose that Shakspere intended him to be ignorant of 
Cawdor’s revolt and execution, until Ross and Angus, the King’s 
messengers, reveal the fact to him in the same scene, by informing 
him of his investiture with the condemned rebel’s thaneship. This 
fulfilment of the witches’ second prophecy is to Macbeth earnest 
of the fulfilment of the third, promising him the crown: the 
powers of Hell are working on his side; but, to borrow Professor 
Dowden’s words, his guilty intention has made him the slave of 
evil, and no longer a free agent to resist. Added to this he is 
fronted immediately by the opportunity to murder the King, which 
he had sworn to make if time and place did not of themselves 
serve ; the King proposes to visit him in his castle at Inverness. 

Macbeth is not heroic in evil—he does not possess a mastery 
over the modes of villainy, nor a mastery of self before the 
opportunities for compassing them which fate, as he calls it, has 
set before him. He stands aghast at the sight of shadowy agents 
of the metaphysical world suddenly ranged up to compel him to 
the course which, unaided by them, his own courage would perhaps 
never have compassed. He brvods not in resisting the temptation 
but in analysing his sensations. 


Macbeth—‘* Why do I yield to that suggestion 
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, 
And muke my seated heart knock as my ribs 
Against the use of nature? Present fears 
Are less than horrible imaginings ; 
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, 
Shakes so my single state of man, that function 
Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is 
But what is not. 


Banquo —Look how our partner’s rapt.”’ 


64 The Irish Monthly. 


‘The passion of ambition for which Macbeth has bartered away 
his soul has yielded place to the obsession of a single idea. 
Brouglit face to face with the means of committing the crime he 
is sworn to, the physical.image of the murder, which he carelessly 
faced in the abstract, confronts and terrifies him. He becomes 
whelmed in the idea of Duncan lying in his blood; he feels the 
soft resistance to his dagger-point of the old man’s breast; with 
haggard face, and eye fixed on vacancy, the phantoms of his 
brain arrange themselves into all the sickening details of murder; 
the powers of evil are at work within him, and he yields to their 
suggesting as a man dcesin a hypnotio trance. In other words, 
he becomes a prey to the malady known to Charcot and other 
medical psychologists as /’tdée fire: it is the first stage of 
monomania. These fits of abstraction are the petits mais, or 
warning signs of the oncoming storm of that fierce epilepsy of 
crime into which he is about to fall. To his slaves the devil is a 
hard taskmaster, he drives them with the lash. 

For such a state of demonio obsession what chance remains 
of rescue? Spiritually speaking there is none, Shakspere would 
seem to say. The souls of such are already in the outer darkness 
and must “dree their weird.” And yet, before the final con- 
summation of his guilt, the human hand of Macbeth reaches out 
to grasp another’s. There is nothing so piteous in the whole of 
Shakspere, so terrible in its irony as the fact that Macbeth loves 
a woman, and is loved by her in return. It only wants on her 
part a practical refusal to countenance his intention, and the evil 
spell under which he has fallen will be broken forthwith. It 
requires from her no ardour of virtue to accomplish this; a 
practical recognition of the ultimate futility of his designs to 
bring him satisfaction, and a few plain words from her will 
suffice, Half hoping they may be given, half hoping they may 
be withheld, Macbeth sets out before the King for Inverness, to 
apprise his wife of his guest’s approach. But in the turmoil of 
unrest and shadowy fear that has taken possession of him, he 
dreads to meet the steadfast face he knows so well. He sends 
messengers on before him, the first with a letter which tells her 
of the meeting with the witches and their prophecies, the second 
with the verbal news that the King is following him to be his 
guest. The news will tell her all his soul shrinks from discussing; 
in her face, when they meet, he can read her resolve, and learn 





Some Notes on Macbeth. 65 


his fate. 

It is here that the irony of Shakspere rises to its highest flight 
of truth. The hand, that might have stayed Macbeth on his 
downward and headlong rush into crime, is thrust forward to 
accelerate his fall. But this fact is only the bitter fruit of his own 
misdoing. He has long since cut himself adrift from human 
succour by having dragged his wife with him into the depths of 
criminal desire and intention, in which he has lived for some time 
before the opening of the play. 

It is Lady Macbeth who once stood in that middle state where 
extremes of virtue and extremes of vice were possibilities in her 
nature. And the determining cause which sways the balance in 
her case on the side of crime is not any tendency towards criminal 
desires, nor even towards ambition for herself, but is the passion 
of her woman’s heart for the man who is her husband. Love is 
the sole ardour of which she is capable, and the ruler of her 
existence ; she possesses a conscience, but it does not govern her 
actions, .Like every woman who loves passionately, she has 
formed her ideal of Macbeth; and she has not yet been dis- 
illusioned. She holds Macbeth to be “too full o’ the milk 0’ 
human kindness to catch the nearest way ” (i.e. to grasp the 
crown by murder). She anticipates Macbeth’s shrinking from 
the actual commission of the crime, and attributes it to the 
workings of his conscience. ‘ What thou wouldst highly, that 
wouldst thou holily.” Though unswayed by spiritual fears her- 
self, yet such workings in the nature of the man she loves are 
part of him, and she does not despise him for being partly 
influenced by them. For herself she has no ambition other than 
to see the fruition of her husband’s desires. There is only one 
line in the play in which she speaks of herself as a future Queen, 
and then it is as coupled with Macbeth. She knows that Macbeth 
will never be content unless his desire to possess the crown is 
gratified, and that is a motive stronger with her than any vision 
of Queenship. She reads in Macbeth’s letter the fulfilment of one 
prophecy of the witches and the promise of the other, and she is 
filled with a fierce exultation, But the fulfilment of the first 
prophecy is not to her a guerdon of surety that the throne will 
fall to his grasp in inaction and by waiting : she longs for his 
approach that she may spur him on to work out the promised 
destiny. 


66 The Irish Monthly, 


‘* Hie thee hither 
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, 
And chastise with the valour of my tongue 
All that impedes thee from the golden round, 
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem 
To have thee crowned withal.” 


Straightway as she utters these words the second messenger 
arrives with the news “the King comes here to-night.” The 
news is so tremendous that it breaks down all her self-control, and 
forces from her the ory “ Thou’rt mad to say it!” But the news 
is true and her mind sweeps on without hesitation to the awful 
climax which it portends. 


‘¢ The raven himself is hoarse 
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 
Under my battlements.’’ 


To neglect so stupendous a fulfilment of the desires that have 
shaken Macbeth’s peace for so long would amount to an iniquity 
in her code of ethics. There is no pause with her to analyse her 
sensations; it only remains for her to consecrate her soul and body 
to the work of death. Even “ the curse ” of Lear is not so terrible 
as that speech in which she cuts off from herself her better nature, 
and “palls her in the dunnest smoke of hell; ”—as Professor 
Dowden says :—‘‘ Into the service of evil she carries some of the 
intensity and energy of asceticism.’ And so this delicate aud 
fragile woman becomes an abiding place of hell. “ According to 
my notion,” says the great actress, Mrs. Siddons, who reached the 
height of her art in this part, “ Lady Macbeth’s beauty is of that 
character which I believe is generally allowed to be most captivat- 
ing to the other sex—fair, feminine; nay, perhaps even fragile.’ 
Dr. Bucknill about the same time, but ignorant that Mrs. Siddons 
held a similar opinion, wrote, “ Lady Macbeth was a lady 
beautiful and delicate, whose one vivid passion proves that her 
organisation was instinct with nerve force, unoppressed by weight 
of flesh. Probably she was small; for it is the smaller women 
whose emotional fire is the most fierce, and she herself bears 
unconscious testimony to the fact that her hand was little.” Such 
is the nature, warped by the contamination of his own evil which 
Shakspere’s irony places awaiting the vacillating and excitably 


imaginative mind of the criminal Mavbeth, to guide and direct 
him. 





Some Notes on Macbeth. 67 


Only those who have witnessed it can imagine how beautifully 
the whole situation is told when Irving’s Macbeth meets the T.ady 
Macbeth of Ellen Terry. The haggard pallid face with the 
haunted shifting eyes cannot meet the steadfast gaze of the wife, 
who, after the first outburst of loving and triumphant greeting, 
becomes strangely quiet and apprehensive as she watches him, and 
strives to compel his glance to meet her own. Husky, from the 
dry throat of agitation, the first words of Macbeth come slowly, 
and with pauses in between. 


“My dearest love . . . 
Duncan .. . . comeshere . . . . to-night.’’ 


It is the crisis of his soul. It is to discuss this subject with 
her which he most fears and most desires. But the weird change 
that has come upon Macbeth since she saw him last, the blight 
cast on him by the absorption of spiritual miasma in the witches’ 
presence have chilled somewhat the wife’s exultation. In a pause 
she waits to hear more; but the silence grows. She will bring 
him to the point before she speaks further. Quietly in distinct 
undertones she asks the question—‘t And when goes hence? ”— 
Irving starts, a furtive look of fear crosses his face, and he 
answers—‘ To-morrow.” . . . sharply. There is in reply to 
this a quiet and chilling withdrawal uf contact from him on the 
part of Ellen Terry. The cowardly spirit of Macbeth feels the 
human sympathy he needs slipping away from him, and he 
hastens to drop the innuendo that sets the seal of finality on the 
the death of hissoul. . . . . “as he purposes.” 

Lady Macheth— ‘* O, never 
Shall sun that morrow see! . . 


Your face, my thane, is as a book where men 
May read strange matters.’’ 


I have heard a great critic say once that Irving in this 
character over-emphasized the superstitious side of Macbeth’s 
nature. I think he mistook for an expression of superstitious fear, 
that spiritual inward strife against shadowy horror and fixed idea 
which no actor, living or dead, has ever expressed with a like weird 
power and intensity. The acting of Irving in “ /he Bells,” “ Louis 
XT,” é“ Eugene Aram” is only a key as it were to his finer and more 
subtle method of expressing the same element in Macbeth. As I 


* Note the effeot here of the unfinished metre of this line, and the emphasis, 
first made, and so frequently repsated, on the countenance of Macbeth. 


68 The Irish Monthly. 


have said elsewhere, no artist except Dickens has in modern 
times got within the murderer’s soul so completely as Irving, and 
this amounts to saying that, next to Shakspere, in this respect, 
Irving and Dickens stand alone. 

Macbeth’s last chance of rescue gone, he feels no comfort nor 
conviction. His mind still reaches after the means to escape from 
the necessity which evil has thrust upon him, and he answers but 
sluggishly to the lash. His nervous system is too worn dut to 
grapple with the problem of ways and means for committal of the 
crime; and to discuss it with his wife is, to him even, revolting. 
He defers the evil hour: 


Macheth—We will speak further. 


Lady Macbeth— Only look up clear ; 
To alter favour ever is to fear : 
Leave all the rest to me. 


The truth is that a new phantom is added to the shadows against 
which his disordered imagination is at strife. The delicate beauty of 
this highly strung nervous woman whom he loves has placed her 
as a thing apart from and above his rougher nature. Without the 
ardour of virtue against which his unprincipled egotism would 
have revolted, he has found help in’ the keen intelligence, and 
comfort in the quick sympathy, with which she has met his plans 
and aspirations and discussed them. But even for a criminal like 
Macbeth, it is one thing to see the woman he loves approve a 
crime in the abstract, and another to find that on the spur of the 
emergency she is more prepared than he is, inured though he 
be to the sight of slaughter on the battle-field, to discuss end plan 
its sickening details. The affection that exists between them has 
not been fraught with any of that severe reticence of tenderness 
such as exists between a strong soul wedded to a weak; strange 
as it may seem, the high-strung nervous energy of this woman 
who sees things in their clearest and most definite outline, has 
not told on Macbeth’s mind, where fact forever disappears in the 
dim atmosphere of surmise, to compel him to the reverential 
homage which the weak soul feels for the strong to which it is 
mated; only her fragile beauty has affected him, and she is his 
‘dearest chuck.’’ He has seen her with his child at her breast ; 
and now. . . . . The eagerness with which she has dedicated 
herself to the uttermost service of hell has appalled him. Instead 


Some Notes on Macbeth. 69 


of the pallid agitation which he knows has painted his own face, 
he finds the flush of exultation and the baleful light of murderous 
determination in hers. She has joined the army of shadowy 
terrors that hold his soul in siege. He flies both the event and 
her, and, noteworthy fact, leaves her alone to greet the King and 
welcome him to her threshold. 

The night has fallen, the darkness that is paramount in the 
play, and the glimmer of the torches lights up the still set face of 
this woman who unassisted stands at her castle’s entrance to greet 
the King and kinsman she has doomed to death. The acting of 
Ellen Terry in this scene created one of the finest moments that 
the modern stage has seen: the outward charm and dignity of 
her bearing, and yet the nervous contraction of her lips and brows 
with the tense tones of her voice told so fully the strain within 
kept under by the indomitable woman’s will. 

Later in the night, from the supper room where his victim is 
feasting secure, wan and haggard, Macbeth staggers into the castle 
hall. He has been unable to determine on anything, in his shaken 
mental state all details, save the pictures of his crime and its 
consequences, elude his grasp as he strives to clutch them. The 
sight of the old King whom he is sworn to slay makes him a prey 
to physical sensations which he cannot endure, and he steals from 
his presence into solitude to dispel with reasoning, if he can, the fell 
impulse to murder that, in spite of all its terrors, is still raging at 
his heart. But there is no element of remorse in Macbeth’s 
struggles. It is the same here as with Faust. For those who are 
his slaves the Evil One has no gentle wooings. He spares them 
nothing in the enormity of their guilt, even before their crime’s 
commission. Though with their own words they may paint on 
their souls its full blackness, yet he drives them on. Macbeth sees 
the triple treachery he is about to be guilty of—the murder of 
kinsman, guest, and king. But the motives that make him shrink 
from it are not those of abstract revolt against the sin, but the fear 
of how it will appear to others, and affect his safety. The virtues 
of Duncan, of which he speaks, do not appeal to him for “ pity,” 
but he knows how they will appeal to others, ‘‘and blow the horrid 
deed in every eye.” It is all the fruitless reasoning of a criminal 
at heart who shrinks from crime only because he cannot see a way 
towards its safe committal. In his duties as host he has not yet 
had that further speech with his wife which he had promised 





70 The Irish Monthly. 


himself. As she now enters in search of him, he strives to summon 
up a show of final decision to leave things as they are, and enjoy 
the honours won and given him, rather than risk their loss. 


Macbeth.— We will proceed no further in this business. 
He hath honoured me of late; and I have bought 
Golden opinions from all sorts of people, 
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, 
Not cast aside too soon. 


But here the irony of Shakspere shows us Macbeth at odds with a 
foree of evil of his own creating that he had not reckoned with. 
In days gone by he has infected this woman with the poison of his 
ambition and criminal desires; the evil seed has grown and now 
bears the fruit of death ; all the force of her intellect and woman’s 
anger is hurled into her words, and the weaker nature of the man 
shrinks back appalled at her indignation and scorn. 


Lady Macheth.— Was the hope drunk 
Wherein you dressed yourself? hath it slept since? 
And wakes it now to look so green and pale 
At what it did so freely? From this time 
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeared 
To be the same in thine own act and valour 
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that 
Which thou esteemest the ornament of life, 
And live a coward in thine own esteem ? 


The word “ coward”’ is like a whip-lash in the face of the man 
who can feel its stinging truth. He answers to the blow with a 
fruitless boast. 


Macheth.— Prithee, peace! 
I dare do all that may become a man! 
Who dares do more is none. 


But the boast has no effect. This woman who for love and 
love’s ambition has unsexed herself and pawned her soul in self- 
dedication to the powers of evil, sees the object of her ambition 
slipping from her grasp, whilst the man who has debauched her 
moral attributes draws back and would lay claim to virtue where 
only cowardice is at work. Her whole proud nature revolts at 
the injustice, she will rend the veil of self-complacent rectitude in 
which he has wrapped himself, and having shown him to himself 
in his true image she will show herself also. 


-_—— Im 





Some Notes on Macbeth. 71 


lady Macheth— What beast was’t then 
That made you break this enterprise to me ? 
When you durst do it, then you were a man; 
And to be more than what you were, you would 
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place 
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both : 
They have made themselves, and that their fitness 
Does now unmake you. I have given suck 
And know how tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me: 
I would, while it was smiling in my face, . . . . 
Have dashed the brains out, had 7 ao sworn 
As you have done to this ! 


The fountains of the great deep are broken up: the truth and 
fulness of Macbeth’s crime and meanness are told; naked and 
ashamed, his evil soul stands trembling and a culprit before the 
soul of' the woman he has ruined. In a hoarse whisper he con- 
fesses himself. 


Macheth— If we should fail! 
Lady Macheth—We fail. 


She knows she has won the game; his spirit is plastio as clay in 
her hands; but she knows also that his recantation was chiefly 
due to inability to plan the details of the murder, and perhaps 
her woman’s intuition tells her the piteous pathos of the fact that 
a lingering sentiment of the romance that once encircled their 
love has made him shrink from soiling her sensibilities with any 
such discussion. With pity she seats herself beside him, and, 
taking the weary haggard face to her bosom, unfolds the plot by 
which, when she has drugged the grooms of the King’s chamber, 
the old man may be slain and the crime laid on his sleeping 
servants. ‘The words are as wine to the parched soul of Macbeth ; 
asthe simplicity and effectiveness of the plot are unfolded, it is 
with the cry of a primordial nature and of a savage he embraces 
her. 
“ Bring forth men children only: 


For thy undaunted mettle should compose 
Nothing but males ! ”” 


All doubt and hesitancy are for the time cast aside. This woman 
whose urgings to evil had added but one more to the list of 
shadowy foes, has for the moment, by the force of her intellect 
and nervous energy, swept all the shadows aside—the human aid 


2 The Irish Monthly. 


he has sought for is his, and a flash of light, as the lightning plays 
across the storm, illumines the darkness of his soul. But the 
light is the pallid flame of hell, and the rhyme of his words is the 
laughter thereof. 


Away ! and mock the time with fairest show. 
False face must hide what the false heart doth know. 


Montact GRIFFIN. 


(To be continued). 


THE ELF-CHILD. 


‘’ \TOTHER! is this the storm-fiend, swooping down to seize me ? 


He hath slain all my autumn leaves with his lightning sword.”’ 
Nay, nay, my little one, ’tis angels’ fingers straying 
In some wild midnight voluntary on the organ of the Lord ! 


“ Mother ! stars are hidden, and the great cloud-billows 
Pile their big battalions o’er the flying moon; 

Will she be o’erwhelmed, and rise no more to cheer us ?” 
Nay, nay, my little one, ’tis moon-dance to storm-rune. 


“ Mother, list! the death-watch, tapping, tapping, tapping ; 
Is this my little coffin that they’re nailing, plank to plank?” 
Mother's tears are falling, pitifully falling ; 

Mother’s heart is sinking in the midnight, drear and blank. 


But she whispered : Nay, my child ’tis angels’ fingers swaying 
The woodbine’s long, lithe tendrils against the window pane ; 
Sleep, my child, thy little couch is canopied and fringed 

By the locked wings of angels against the storm and rain. 


Slept the weary elf-child; slept the mother weary ; 

Angels folded ermine wings, like cope of kneeling priest; 

Then upwards through the storm-blast, on their white breasts cradled, 
Passed the sleeping elf-child to the Child-God’s natal Feast. 


P. A. SuexHan. 


( 73.) 


THROOGH THE DARK NIGHT. 
| or, 


THIRTY YEARS AGO. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


THE FENIANS., 


THNA TALBOT’S visit also came to a close. Once upon a 

time she used to indignantly condemn those whose love 

of nature was unenthusiastic, who felt no “ rapture by the lonely 

ghore,” and doubted the exhilarating effect of breezy mountains ; 

but at the end of a month she was weary of them, and went 
back thankfully to city ways. 

She returned to her life of pleasure, she was to be seen at 
social gatherings, sometimes with her husband, as often without 
him, matronising her gay young friends. She and Vincent were 
well known in the park, where Seagull attracted the notice of 
anyone who had a knowledge of horseflesh. She was rarely at 
home in the evenings except when they were giving one of their 
brilliant little supper-parties, where politics were largely discussed 
and patriotic songs were sung very well, rather than wisely. 

Ethna never questioned her husband as to the manner in which 
he spent those midnight hours that were apart from hers. They 
were like divers who took momentary rest side by side upon the 
shore, before plunging again into the great deep; they thought not 
of each other, but of the possible pearls beneath the glancing tide. 
They were both good-tempered, they had excellent animal spirits, 
and they never disagreed. If one had to yield to the other, the 
innate selfishness of Ethna’s nature asserted itself, as usual, and 
she did exactly as she pleased. 

Lizzie Lynch in her secret heart did not approve of the 
ménage in which she became a most useful personage, and some- 
times opened her mind to her lover. 

“ Ah, then, isn’t it a pity the mistress wouldn't stop at home ?”’ 


Vor. xxvx. No. 295. 6 





74 The Irish Monthly. 


she would say. ‘And where does the master be at all? Last 
night he came in so pale and tired. Dear knows but he gave me 
aturn. °“Tis the wonder of the world she would not stop within 
and see after him.” 

“I suppose you will never take your eye off me when you 
have a hoult of me,” answered Corney. ‘ The master is able to 
take care of himself.”’ 

é“ I don’t like some of your ways, no more than another,” said 
Lizzie. ‘ You aren't the boy you were—out at night, walking the 
world, when you ought to be in your bed. “Tis a droll way of 
living—— in bed when we ought to be up, and up when we ought 
to be in bed. And how will the master stand at all, and the 
way money is going P ”’ 

é There's no fear of his money, Liz. Sure his father is made 
of money, and there’s no one there but himself. You fret your- 
self about everything, you foclish girl. ’Tis well for me I’m in 
for such a sensible wife.” 

“God give us all sense,” said Lizzie; “Im in dread we 
haven't, much of it.” 

But beneath the smiling surface of society there were forces at 
work which were gradually upheaving—ugly rocks to startle 
those who sailed about in their little pleasure boats, and alarm 
those who had a good deal to Jove on board. The fall of Richmond 
closed the American War ; the Federal armies were disbanded, 
and the Irish regiments were set at liberty. Numbers of gallant 
officers, who had nothing in particular to turn to, were only loo).- 
ing out for a cause to which they could give sympathy and 
assistance, 

The Fenian leaders concluded that the long-wished-for hour 
was come—the hour to emancipate Ireland and regenerate her 
generally. Arms were imported. American officers came over 
in every steamer, the earliest being established in Dublin. The 
Government well knew of the conspiracy, but knew not where to 
lay hold of it; military were poured into the city, which gave 
additional impetus to balls and parties; and excitement, both 
pleasurable and painful, prevailed everywhere. The Fenians were 
beginning to assert themselves, and were not afraid to come 
occasionally into collision with the Nationalists at public 
assemblies. 

The hours that Ethna devoted to dancing graceful measures 





Through the Dark Night. 75 


upon waxed floors were spent by Vincent and Corney O’Brien at 
Fenian meetings, where Louis Sarsfield, a/ias Joe Smith, was high 
in command—hot-headed, enthusiastic meetings, where there was 
patriotism, courage, and unselfish purpose in abundance, impossible 
aspirations for ideal liberty, and impersonal aims; but where there 
was neither reason, common sense, nor that discretion which is 
said to be the better part of valour—the mass being leavened by 
a goodly number of those warlike spirits who have a natural taste 
for conspiracy—conspiracy being, in the mind of man, somehow 
opposed to the necessity of his having to work honestly for his 
livelihood. 

Louis Sarsfield was about the only sensible man among the 
conspirators ; he entirely disapproved of having recourse to arms 
for the present; he “was altogether misled,” he said, “ about 
the organisation, and would never have come over, had he known 
the unprepared state in which the country continued; but he had 
got into the swim and should submit to higher and unwise 
authority.” 

Corney O’Brien, with a great number of the Monalena boys, 
had been inflamed by Cheap Jack’s brilliant pictures of “ New 
Ireland,” if her sons had the courage to fight for her, and had 
been sworn in by him, while he was decorating the maternal 
“ dresses.” 

Though moet of the national leaders—those, at least, who 
were best known to the people, the chiefs of the Forty-eight 
movement—censured and kept aloof from the unconstitutional 
scheme, the promoters of it were fortunate enough to secure the 
services of some men of rare abilities and invincible courage. One 
of them—a student who had graduated at the Queen’s University, 
and taken out his medical degrees in the Queen’s College, Cork— 
was a friend of Vincent’s, and it did not take him a very long 
time to confuse the boy’s ideas about the duties owed to the 
“higher powers,” and fill his mind with arcadian visions of a free 
and a happy land. 

Ethna knew nothing of her husband’s movements; she knew 
as little about the Fenians; she gave them no deep thought ; but 
with her natural tendency to go to extremes, she defended them 

with great animation. 

“ Pshaw, I am ashamed of my country,” she exclaimed, scorn- 
fully at one of her suppers. “ Such puny attempts at liberty! 


76 The Irish Monthly. 


Why would not men fight for their country and be done with 
it P” 

é“ It'g not a wise thing to tread on a lion’s tail if you have no 
weapon to kill him, Mrs, Talbot,”’ replied Louis Sarsfield. 

“Tread on his tail !” she repeated, mockingly. ‘ One roar 
from him a mile away is enough to make an Irishman run. We 
women must give the keys of the pantry to our husbands and take 
the guns from them.” 

“I always saw you put your fingers in your ears whenever 
you knew I was going to fire one,” said Vincent. 

“Oh, I would get over that in the excitement and glory of 
fighting in a great‘and noble cause. But Irishmen expend all 
their energies plotting over pots of whisky in holes and corners; 
they have no strength left to face the enemy. I never would 
expect anything of them since the day thousands of them stood 
by and saw Robert Emmet hanged.” 

Day by day the excitement increased in the city, and one 
morning it was electrified by the intelligence that those who were 
suspected to be Fenian leaders were safely lodged in prison. 
There was a great tumult. Houses were searched and ransacked ; 
mothers were in terror about their sons; wives about their husbands. 
No one was certain who was or was not concerned in the move- 
ment, and those who had a timid organisation anticipated a 
general massacre. It was the same way all over the country: 
midnight arrests, wild flights, perilous escapes, and panic, Then 
there was the capture of the great Fenian chief ; causing the upper 
and business classes to exult, the lower ones to mourn. And 
hardly had the excitement of his arrest abated when the public 
was again thrown into convulsions by the tidings of his escape 
from prison. Utter consternation prevailed among the peaceful 
portion of the community. Unknown horrors were anticipated. 
Cavalry scoured the country in all directions. Police scattered 
through the city, scarching suspected houses, tearing down wains- 
cotting, ripping up floors, examining garrets, presses, and coal- 
cellars; but without avail. And the inhabitants of the city 
remained in a state of uncertainty as to whether they would be 
blown up individually or collectively. 

Meanwhile, Vincent Talbot and Corney O’Brien attended to 
the business of the office more attentively than they had done for 
some months, and escaped suspicion. Louis Sarsfield had dis- 








Through the Dark Night. 77 


appeared ; and after a time people began to draw their breaths, 
and to hope that, after all, they might not be precipitated so 
suddenly into the other world as they expected. 


CuapPrER XXXI. 


“you ARE COLD, OR HARD, OR SOMETHING.” 


“T wish you remained at home to-night, Ethna,”’ said Vincent 
one afternoon. “ I can’t go with you, I have business to attend; 
but I would be in early.” 

“Stay at home,” she exclaimed, “after getting a new dress 
and promising to take the Weldons! Can you not put off your 
business P It is sure to be a pleasant ball.” 

“No; I have made an appointment. You ought to be tired 
of balls and parties now. You are a dissipated character.” 

“So I am tired of them sometimes, but we must be at some- 
thing or we would get into the blues.” 

‘‘T wonder how do people manage who never go to balls ?”’ 
said Vincent. 

“Fight with their husbands and wives, perhaps,’ answered 
Ethna, “and sulk through the evenings. I daresay there are 
many who would condemn our mode of living and expatiate on 
the beauty of domestic habits, and all they do themselves is to stay 
at home and make themselves very unpleasant. Did you ever 
remark how disagreeable some virtuous people are? They act up 
to the letter and give free scope to the spirit. There is no one 
agitates my bile so much as a Pharisee ? ”’ 

“ Ah, did you ever meet a lax person who did not denounce 
the Scribes and Pharisees?” said Vincent, laughingly. “They 
flatter themselves that there is an honesty about their own sins 
that deserves consideration, hypocrisy alone is the damnable one.” 

‘Tt is hard to know who is good or bad,” said Ethna. 
“T see people who, I am sure, fancy they are admirable, as 
envious, uncharitable, and worldly as a timid little demon might 
be who got the run of the world for a while and wished to keep 
up appearances.” 

“ Oh, you are always rushing to extremes,” answered Vincent. 
“You can excuse the sins of a sinner, but you cannot have 


3 








78 The Irish Monthy. 


patience with the imperfections of a good Christian ; when you 
become well behaved yourself, nothing will do you but hair 
shirts and flagellations.” 

“That would be a great change,” she said. “I hate mortifi- 
cation of any kind; and I like to be amused.” 

Vincent had finished his luncheon ; he laid down his napkin 
and leaned his head upon his hands. 

“Do you know, Eth,” he said, looking meditatively at her, 
é“ I think you are fonder of amusement than you are of me?” 

é“ How do you make out that ?”’ she replied, a little surprised. 
é“ Am I not very agreeable—for a wife, you know ?” 

é“ Yes, you are not disagreeable, but you are cold, or hard, or 
something, like as if you kept me on the outside of your nature 
rather than near your heart, and I would be very fond of you if 
you let me.” 

é You foolish fellow, we are old married people now, we could 
not be always spooning.”’ 

“ But you never spooned. I sometimes think you took more 
interest in me before we were married or engaged, than you did 
since; I might be getting my head in a halter now for all you 
know.” 

“Indeed you deserve a better wife. I acknowledge that. 
Was there a button off your shirt to-day, to awaken doubts 
of my conjugal love ?’’ 

“ No, the buttons were all right, for which I may thank 
Lizzie,” he answered with a smile; “but often, Eth, in the even- 
ings when I see you looking so handsome and cdmired, I think 
if you were a strange girl, what a great case we might have, and 
how we might be awfully in love with each other.” 

Ethna laughed. 

é You ought to have more sense,” she said, “ and rejoice that 
you are spared romantic agoniesfor evermore. Moderate omotion 
is safer than ecstasies.”’ 

“Oh, you are a great philosopher,” answered Vincent, standing 
up. ‘* But I have something to do now besides discussing the 
tender passion ; so good-by to you.” 

That night Ethna moved softly to the inspiring strains of a 
band, beautifully dressed, and surrounded by admirers; while 
Vincent presided at a Fenian council within locked doors, where 
weighty matters were discussed concerning the good of the country. 


Through the Dark Night. 79 


Next day Vincent and Ethna drove to Kingstown to call upon 
Mr. and Mrs. Moore, who were staying there. She went now with 
none of the misgivings that agitated her in the time gone by. 
She was no longer the awkward country girl, but the fashionable 
young matron, certain of her position, her appearance, and her 
ebility to conduct herself according to the laws of polite society. 
She no more seemed at a disadvantage beside the calm English 
lady, whom she evidently surprised; and she was quite able to 
discuss those topics—those current subjects of conversation—her 
ignorance of which heretofore had seemed to place such an im- 
measurable distance between them. 

Henry Moore was delighted to see her, and with great pride 
showed her his little son, who was an inhabitant of this vale of 
tears for six months. A strange yearning awoke in Ethna’s 
heart as she watched the mother bend over it with unspeakable 
affection, and she thought to herself, with a sudden feeling of 
despair, that it was her doom to be always kept from the happiness 
of a great love. 

They told her that Miss Butler was engaged to the Honourable 
Charles Leslie, and that Philip Moore had some idea of exchang- 
ing into another regiment and returning home. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 
BIG BILL. 


“I don’t like the ways of this place at all, if I could help it,” 
said Lizzie Lynch, placing Corney O’Brien’s dinner before him. 
“ The mistress thinking of nothing but dressing and dancing, and 
you and the master out, the Lord knows where; are you sure ’tis 
to safe places ye go, Corney ?” 

“ Listen to her,” answered Corney. “Was there ever such a 
little onsha 2? You won't leave a bit above on your bones, fretting 
about nothing; of course we go to safe places, and we'll make 
everything safe yet, please God.” 

“I misdoubt everything,” said Lizzie, “ place. and people, 
even the policeman, civil-spoken as he is.” 

“You needn’t be listening to his civil speeches,” replied 

Corney, sharply. “T'd put a stop to his coorting on this beat while 


80 The Irish Monthly. 


I’d be looking about me, the ill-looking sframmet.” 

é“ He's not so bad at all, as far as looks go,” said Lizzie, “ but 
I don’t like him for all that.” 

é You don't,” answered Corney, “ but you like a bit of 
divarsion, Í suppose; if you told him, like an honest girl, that you 
were bespoken already, he’d drop his soft talk.” 

“?Tis soft talk that tries to pick out of me,” said Lizzie. 
“ He is very anxious entirely to know where Mr. Smith is, and 
does the master expect him to come back to town soon? and he 
wanted to know did you keep me company in the evenings? 
Right well I knew what he was up to with all his plaumausy.” 

‘‘T’ll blacken his eyes and put a stop to his spying,’’ exclaimed 
Corney. ‘I have the patience of the world and to stand by, seeing 
him make up to you; but who knows—I’ll have it out of him 
yet, please God.” 

é“ Have sense, Corney, and don’t be so near your temper,’’ said 
Lizzie; ‘he’s watching more than me, or I’m greatly mistaken. 
The Lord knows the life does be frightened out of me. I know 
the way it was with the boys in Monalena since Cheap Jack came 
there. I thought you'd be safe when you came to Dublin; but, 
sure, ‘tis like as if we were walking on a mine, and I wish we 
were back in the country, so I do. Where were ye last night ?” 

“ At the theatre, to be sure, where there was the grandest 
play in the world. II] tell you the story of it when I am done; 
there was a pair in it fond of each other, like yourself and 
myself.” 

“ Ah, if you were so fond of me, you’d give ear to what I say,” 
said Lizzie, with a sigh; ‘‘ you’d give up night-walking those 
troubled times, and mind nothing but the business; and, if the 
mistress stayed in, so might the master. But, where’s my use in 
talking ? ”’ 

. A yard ran out at the rere of the house and opened on the end 
of a narrow lane, which, a few paces or so farther on, led round to 
the main street, and in the other direction. backwards into a 
‘wilderness of sin,” a tangle of dirty, evil-looking houses—a 
place where one might naturally expect to see the ugly head of 
vice leering aut of the battered doors and frowning windows, if 
unaware that he as often sits smiling behind pillared porticos and 
plateglass. 

A large wooden door in which was a little wicket gave ingress - 





Through the Dark Night. 81 


and egress to Vincent's horse and trap; and here it was the wont 
of Lizzie Lynch to watch for Corney when he was out later than 
usual. 

One night she stood listening at the gate—the Talbots had 
gone to an entertainment, the other servants were in bed—lister- 
ing to the sounds of the city as they slowly died away. It was a 
blowing night, heavy clouds drifted across a cold full moon, and the 
masses of ivy growing on the old wall above the gate clashed their 
leaves together. There seemed to be more noise than usual down 
the lane, and with a beating heart, Lizzie bent her head to listen. 
There was a publichouse, much patronised by soldiers and out- 
casts of society, in the locality, and incompatibility of temper over 
their drink often ended in open warfare. 

Lizzie opened the wicket and gazed into the outer, darkness, 
but closed it again rapidly, for the uproar was evidently'increasing 
in and about the publichouse. 

Suddenly it broke forth into tle wildest excess. Shrieks and 
curses filled the air; evidently the publichouse ejected its unruly 
inmates, and a free fight was being finished in the lane. Lizzie 
held the bolt of the wicket in her hand ready to let in Corney the 
moment he came. The noises were coming nearer, cries of pain, 
passion, and blasphemy mingled in a hideous tangle of sound ; 
her strained ears caught the sound of running footsteps, there was 
a stumble at the door, which shook it, and an awful oath in the 
suppressed voice of a woman. 

‘Where am I?” she said, “ he'll kill me, blast him, why did 
ever I let go my hands off his neck P ” 

She clung close to the door, which vibrated with her smothered 
panting s. 

“ Where is she ”” cried out the furious voice of a man, ‘‘ let 
me at her till I stick her an’ send her to hell; I'll tear her limb 
from limb, the blasted villain. Give her up or I’ll have yer life.” 

“é He’hl find me,” muttered the woman; “ but I might as well 
die here as anywhere else.” 

With a sudden impulse Lizzie drew the bolt. 

“ Come in,” she whispered, 

The figure crept in through the half-opened wicket and fell 
inside, while the girl fastened it again. Scarcely was it done 
when the crowd was outside. 

sé Thry in the dark,” cried the man. ‘She's drunk, the she- 





82 - The Irish Monthly. 


devil; she can’t go far. When I come up to her, she'll never go 
a step farther.” 

He struck the door in his rage, evidently with a knife, and, 
finding nothing, ran on, followed by the others. 

A moment more there was a ory, “ Police, police!” Footsteps 
were heard flying back again, and in five minutes no sound 
remained but the regular tread of the policemen. 

The woman drew her breath. , 

é“ That knife would have been in me if I was outside,” she 
said, “ an” a good deed when I didn’t send it, through him when 
I had it. I might as well die like a stuck pig as by the river.” 

“God pity you,” said Lizzie. 

“ God! ” answered the woman. “Is there a God at all? I 
know there is a hell, because I live in it, an’ tis the place that 
matches me. But you saved my life this night, and only that the 
Lord wouldn’t listen to me I’d ask Him to bless you, for I’m 
afraid to die—I’m afraid to die.” 

She rocked herself to and fro, with her hands olasping her 
knees, 

“The Lord will listen to you,” said Lizzie. ‘ Doesn’t He 
listen to us all, and who hasn't to ask His pardon? While there's 
life there’s hope.”’ 

é There’s no hope for the likes of me,” answered the woman. 
“Im damned here and hereafter; and I was once good and 
innocent like you, earning an honest bread. Oh, may him that 
put a hand in me first never see the light of God,” she continued, 
falling on her knees. ‘May the tongue that tempted me stiffen 
in his mouth. May the hands that led me astray wither off 
him, may everything he has melt from him, till he feels the shame, 
and hunger, and despair he brought on the top of me. Let me 
out; ’tis time for me to go.” 

She stood up. 

é“ Maybe ’tisn’t safe yet,” said Lizzie, trembling at the woman's 
passionate denunciations, 

“is as safe as ever ’twill be,” answered the woman, “ He 
ran from the peelers. I'll come up to him yet—see, if I don’t. 
I was hungry,stoo, when he struck me.” 

“ And you haven't eaten since.” 

“Where would I get it? We gets enough to drink and half 
enough to eat. When the fight riz, it took the hunger off me.” 


a 





Through the Dark Niyht.- R3 


“ Wait one minute and I1’ll bring you a bit,” said Lizzie. 

She ran into the house, took what she had ready for Corney’s 
supper, and brought it out. The woman took it silently, ate the 
bread and meat, and drank the tea. The tears ran down her face 
as she gave back the bowl, but she repressed her sobs. 

é You are the first that gave me a kind word this many a 
day,” she said ; “ and may I never die till I can do some turn for 
you.” . 

é Bure you won't go to any bad place to-night P” Lizzie said, 
hesitatingly. “ Here is a shilling to pay for your bed. I’m 
afraid to let you out at all into the lane.” 

“Tf you let me out any other way, I’ll disgrace the house,” 
answered the woman, “if any one seen me.” 

Lizzie thought for a moment. She had an old waterproof 
cloak which had been superseded by one Ethna had given her; 
she intended to have brought it home.when next she went to Mona, 
but, thank God, no one at home wanted it so much as this 
miserable wretch. She went into the house again and brought it 
out. It covered all the woman’s tawdry finery, and, with the 
hood drawn over her head, she was hidden and had a decent 
appearance. Quietly they crept into the passages. She opened 
the hall-door and let her into the main street. 

“é You saved my life, you fed and clothed me,” said the 
woman. ‘I won't forget it.” 

“May the Lord speed and save you,” answered Lizzie, closing 
the door. 

The next moment she heard Corney’s gentle signal at the 
wicket, and went out to admit him. She told him of her evening’s 
adventures. 

“You did right, Liz,” he said. ‘The kind act is never 
thrown away; and if the Lord of Glory only gave good things 
to those who deserved them we'd be all badly off.” 

Lizzie saw the woman a few weeks after, when she and Corney 
were walking home from the church. The lamplight shone upon 
the tawdry finery and the worn, pinched face. Lizzie instinctively 
drew closer to the young man’s side, but the woman turned away 
as they advanced and did not pretend to recognise her. She 
followed them, however, at a little distance, and muttered to her- 
self: 

“PU know him again; he’s her sweetheart.” 


84 The Irish Monthly. 


The next week the girl stood at her old post watching for her 
lover; she opened the wicket slightly and saw the woman linger- 
ing in the lane. The moment she observed the aperture she 
glanced about and rapidly advanced. 

“ Bid the one you're waiting for beware,”’ she said. “There's 
more watching him than you.” 

é Who is watching him?” asked Lizzie, in alarm, ‘ Why 
should he be watched P”’ 

“é He knows that himself, maybe, betther than us. Have you 
any call to him ?” 

é“ We're to be married,” said the girl, simply, “ whenever we 
can. But who is watching him ?”’ 

“Tell him to mind himself of big Bill, that’s all.” 

“ Big Bill, the policoman f ”’ . 

“ Bill, the spy. But maybe I’m as good a spy ashim. I'll 
pull the windpipe out of him before he hurts a hair of your sweet- 
heart’s head. But bid him look sharp, an’ mind the road he 
takes to certain places.”’ , 

“ Ah, my God,” said the girl, “what will I do? And he 
won’t be said by me, and stay within.” 

‘© There's no fear yet. Spying Bill hasn't the right end of the 
thread. Look here, if ye gets into any troutle, write a bit of a 
line and put it into that hole there in the wall. I’m able to read, 
an’ I may be able to give a helping hand. I know a good deal 
and we'll do spying Bill. Shut the door; I hear steps.” 

She stooped down as if to pull up her stocking, and then went 
away down the lane, with two policemen quietly sauntering after 
her. 

Corney took the advice sent him so peculiarly, and became 
more domestic in his habits. Heand big Bill bestowed a friendly 

greeting on each other when they came in contact; but Lizzie 
trembled at the sight of him, and made their accidental interviews 
as short as possible. 


Attiz O’BRIEN. 


(To be continued). 





( 85 ) 


REGRETS, 


O palely, faintly blue the skies 
Wherein each separate cloudlet lies 
Like silver. fleece or seraph’s wing, 
With all the poesy of Spring. 


The hills are clad in azure sheen, 
The grass beneath my feet is green, 
And ruddy gold the beeches sway, 
November hath the smile of May ! 


The grey house standeth in the sun. 

While grasses grow and waters run, 

These green fields and this house were ours, 
Its beechen trees and garden bowers. 


But ours it is no more, alas !— 

To strangers the old place will pass, 
For them will bloom the daffodil, 
The roses by each window sill. 


Young children’s voices, sweetly shrill, 
The silence of the rooms may fill, 
Where late the Requiem was said 
Twice in three months above our dead. 


Beloved Dead, the place would be 
All holier for your memory. 

The things familiar to your eyes 

And sacred with your touch we prize. 


Our heavy loss were less complete 

In the old ways that felt your feet, 

The aching in our hearts less sore— 

But these shall know our name no more. 


Yet when the household fires are quenched, 
The darkling panes with cold dews drenched, 
Our dreaming souls will come again 

In half-delirious joy and pain ; 


86 


The Irish Monthly. 


And in the ghostly, moon-lit gloom 
The shadowy curner of each room) 
Shall give to us a shadowy face 
That hath not lost the human grace : 


The sister who had shared our play 

In many a happy long-lost day, 

And he, whose name we may not speak 
Without the tear upon our cheek. 


(Our mother’s coffin lies on his 
In the deep grave where silence is : 
God made her mourning time be brief, 


_ Whose widowed heart was crushed with grief). 


Our dreaming souls will hardly know 
In such dim hours that this is so. 

He seems but sleeping in his chair, 
She’s busy on some household care. 


And in our sister’s hands are flowers 

That are not gathered many hours 

For love and dreams can bridge the years, 
The long, dim sea of bitter tears. 


Dear God, there is a home above 
Within the household of Thy love, 
Where all shall reunited be 
Through the lony, glad Eternity. 


Mary FURLoNG. 


( 87.) 


A BATCH OF IRIBH LEARIC8. 


IRST of all, what is a Learic? A Learteis not a lyric as 
pronounced by one of that nation who joke with deeffioulty ; 
but it is the name we have invented for a single-stanza poem 
modelled on tho form of “ The Book of Nonsense” for which Mr. 
Edward Lear has got perhaps more fame than he deserved. 
His funny pictures helped his funny rhymes very cleverly. We 
have not seen it noticed that these nonsense-verses copy the metre 
of Lady Morgan’s “Kate Kearney.” It is a very amphibrachian 
metre, to coin an epithet for the occasion; namely, the “ foot ” 
that predominates is an amphibrach, consisting of a long syllable 
between two short ones, like eternad. The whole stanza is made up, 
first, of two lines consisting of three amphibrachs, then two short 
lines consisting each of an amphibrach and an iambus, ending 
with a fifth line the same as the first two. Mr. Lear’s verses are 
largely geographical. Here is his nonsensé-verse about almost 
the only Irish town that he has thus honoured :— 
There was an Old Person of Newry, 
Whose manners were tinctured with fury : 
He tore all the rugs 


And broke all the jugs 
Within twenty miles’ distance of Newry. 


The following will fix on the youthful mind that the spot 
which determines our first meridian is pronounced Grinnttch. 
There was a Young Lady of Greenwich 
Whose garments were bordered with spinach ; 
But a large spotty calf 
Bit her shawl quite in half, 
Which alarmed that Young Lady of Greenwich. 


It will be perceived that Mr. Lear uses one rhyme twice. It 
seems a more skilful feat to find three distinct rhymes ; and the 
more ‘difficult the rhyme the better, if the difficulty be fairly 
overcome. ‘“ Winchelsea” is hard enough; but we see no special 
force in the concluding line. 


There was an Old Lady of Winchelsea, 
Who said, ‘‘ If you needle or pin shall see 
On the floor of my room, 
Sweep it up with a broom,’’ 
That exhaustive Old Lady of Winchelsea. 


88 The Irish Monthly. 


With this explanation we venture to print an original batch of 
Learics on Irish men, and women of letters. The reader is 
supposed to know that Mrs. Cowden Clarke wrote a Concordance 
of Shakspere, and that Mrs. Gaskell’s “Cranford” is the closest 
parallel for Miss Barlow’s Lisconneli. 


I, 
The Author of “ The History of Dublin,” 


Thy marvellous lore, Sir John Gilbert, 
Can crack the most obdurate filbert, 
And many a mystery 
In Erin’s dark history 
Has been by thy critical skill bared. 


IT. 
The Author of “ Vagrant Verses.” 


Lady Gilbert, once Rosa Mulholland, 

Weaves stories most deftly of all, and 
Her ‘* Verses,’’ though ‘‘ Vagrant,”’ 
Are pure, fresh, and fragrant— 

Oft drawn from the Acta of Bolland. * 


HL 
The Author of “ Irish Idvlls.” 


The Gaskell of Erin, Jane Barlow, 
Dwells nearer to Dublin than Carlow. 
Irish life with its side ills 
Shines out in her ‘‘ Idylls ’’ 
With much of the pathos of Marlowe. 


IV. 


The Author of “ A Fairy Changeling and Other Poems.” 


Thy name, Dora Sigerson Shorter, 
(Not always pronounced as it ort ter, t) 
Matrimonially rounded, 
Can now be compounded 
In this amphibrachian mortar, 


y 


The “Author of “ The Art of Conversation.” 


A Greek (not a Turk) is Mahaffy ; 

Of his Hellenist lore more than half he 
Has amassed on the plan 
Of that muscular man 

In Cymric song famous as Taffy. 


* St. Barbara, St. Brigid, etc , in the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists 
t The g “ought to’’ have its hard sound. 





A Batch of Irish Learics. 89 


VI. 
The Author of “ Hurrish.”’ 


I wish that Miss Emily Lawless 
In her studies of Ireland saw less 
Of dark ugly shade— 
I The sketch she has made 
Is surely not truthful or flawless. 


VII. 
The Author of “ A Cluster of Nuts.” 


Katherine Tynan is now Mrs, Hinkson, 
But her maiden name pleasantly links on 
To that wonderful throng 
Of story and song 
Which amazes the more that one thinks on, 


VIII. 
The Author of “ The Mystery of Killard.” 


I knew you a boy, Richard Dowling, 
And, though there’s a good deal of howling 
In your thrilling romances, 
' Most gentle your glance is, 
And your face always smiling, not scowling. 


IX. 
The Author of “ Shakspeare, his Mind and Art.’ 


In matters Shakespearian Dowden 
Is a glorified Mrs, Clarke (Cowden). 
He has mixed in the melée 
That rages around Shelley, 
But he cares not for Lingard or Plowden. 


X. 
The Author of “ Maime o' the Corner.” 


Mrs. Blundell, self-called “ M. E. Francis,” 
As bright and as keen as a lance is. 

Her plots are well knit, 

And a delicate wit 
The charm of her stories enhances. 


Var. xxvi. No. 296 7 





( 90 ) 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 
ITT, 
Ridingdale Hall. 


In him the savage virtue of the Race, 

Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead : 
Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place 

The wisdom which adversity had bred. 


WorpsworRTH. 


R. KITTLESHOT’S first impression was that he was 
entering a boys’ school in holiday time; yet the full 
strength of the establishment was not, at this moment, to be found 
in the entrance hall. ‘The music that came from the north wing 
was 80 full (as well as sweet) that it could not have been produced 
by less than a dozen fresh, clear voices. It arrested the visitors 
ou the threshold and made them pause. 

The pause, however, was only one of a few seconds. Four or five 
of the younger Ridingdales had caught sight of the Colonel, and 
it at once became clear to Mr. Kittleshot that whatever his own 
presence might be, that of the old soldier was a perfect joy. The 
tiny troop of infantry bore down upon the gallant man with a 
rush and a cheer and effected his complete capture. He offered 
terms for his own release—terms liberal and succulent. These 
were unanimously scouted—possibly because they had been 
inadvertently left in the dog-cart. And they knew the Colonel’s 
tactics. An old fighter in the hand was worth two in their 
father’s den, and sweets or no sweets they would not let him go. 

The Colonel bent down and whispered into the ear of the 
eldest :'— 

“ He is a stranger, and I must introduce him to your father.”’ 

The forces were drawn off slowly and regretfully, but even the 
little ones understood what was due to a stranger whose presence 
they had not even noticed. 

“T’m always making a mess of something. Worst day I could 
have brought you.. Not that Ridingdale will mind. Promised 
him I’d run you in as soon as possible. Bit noisy—isn’t it? Play 





‘Doings in the Dale. 91 


to be acted, you know, this afternoon. nd this evening.” 

Mr Kittleshot was bewildered. An incessant hammering was 
going on behind the curtain of a large stage at the top of the 
hall. Several boys were putting finishing touches to the decorations 
of the auditorium. Music still sounded from the north wing. 

“é Can't see Ridingdale anywhere,” the Oolonel said, returning 
from behind the scenes. ‘ Of course, though ; what a goose I am! 
He’s rehearsing the chorus.” 

But the little troop of children had rushed off to tell their 
mother that the Colonel had brought a stranger, and before Mr. 
Kittleshot was out of reach of the noises, he had been introduced 
to Mrs. Ridingdale. The Colonel saw that his companion was 
growing apologetic. | 

“ My fault entirely, Mrs. Ridingdale. Don’t listen to him. 
Wouldn’t have brought him if he hadn’t been a bird of passage. 
Known him for years, myself, and knew you would like to meet 
him.” 

Mr. Kittleshot put a hand in the side pocket of his overcoat 
and tried to make his copy of the London Review less obvious by 
giving it another fold. ‘The pocket only bulged a little more and 
made its contents entirely evident. ‘I'he owner of the pocket felt 
disturbed and at the same time charmed. He was thinking that 
Mrs. Ridingdale’s voice was the sweetest he had ever heard, and 
the richness of the musical echoes that still floated in from the 
north wing no longer surprised him. 

But the millionaire was as embarrassed as if his hostess had 
been an empress. She was tall and stately, and her self-possession 
was perfect. Even great ladies were not wont to be so kindly 
and so condescending towards Mr. Kittleshot. Mrs. Ridingdale 
was courtesy itself, but her manner did not include the smallest 
shade of deference. Yet the absence of anything approaching to 
coldness was marked. 

Allher life through Mrs. Ridingdale had been an adept in 
putting people at their ease : it was some time before she succeeded 
in the case of Mr. Kittleshot. For though she smiled so graciously 
and spoke so easily, he felt that she was studying him. He 
might almost have read her thoughts :— 

“I fear we have very little in common ’’—was running in her 
mind, “but I like you more than I care for your son. You are 
overbearing—when you dare; but there is a vein of frankness in 


92 The Irish Monthly. 


you that redeems a rather commonplace character, and you are 
not incapable of improvement.” 

The now distant sounds of singing ceased and Mr. Ridingdale 
appeared. The Colonel again jerked out verbal scraps of ex- 
planation, and in a few minutes the little party of four had begun 
to talk on the big question of Christmas in the country. They 
had reached the drawing-room by slow stages, and Mr. Kittleshot 
tripped in his speech because he was ongaged in mental arithmetic. 
Iie was thinking that ten pounds would be a large sum to pay 
for the contents of this ‘ reception-room,’ and yet—but then of 
course a woman like that with half a crown’s worth of drapery 
would transform a barn into a boudoir. The apartment annoyed 
him, however, a good deal. It was so exasperatingly cosy and so 
undeniably pretty. It was more. Elegance and good taste began 
to declare themselves before you had been seated ten mintues, 
and at the end of half an hour you were inclined to think it the 
only entirely satisfactory room you had ever seen. 

“ As for that ”— the Squire was saying in answer to some 
rather absent-minded, and too obvious remarks of Mr. Kittleshot 
—‘‘T should say the country is the only place for the keeping of 
auy festival whatsoever. But —Mr. lRidingdale laughed very 
good-naturedly here—-“‘ my prejudice in favour of the country is 
a deeply-rooted one.” 

‘‘ Born with you most likely,” the Colonel remarked. “ These 
things are sometimes.” 

It was good for Mr. Kittleshot that Mrs. Ridingdale took up the 
conversation at this point. ‘The millionaire had made a discovery 
and was incapable of speech. He had found out that there was 
searcely anything in the little sa/on in which he was seated that, 
according to his ideas (which were those of the wholesale furnishers) 
ought to have been there. On the other hand, there was much that, 
according to the same authorities, ought to have been elsewhere. 
Surely it was the most unconventional drawing-room in England ! 
Every picture was in black and white, and each was a copy of 
some great masterpiece. They were few in number, but each 
stood forth and pleaded to be looked at and meditated upon. 
There was not a knick-knack to be seen. Was this the secret of 
the glaring originality of the scheme of decoration? There was 
a bust and one statuette, and there were vases, all filled with 


flowers; there was a piano and much music; there were books by 
the hundred. 











Doings.in the Dale. 93 


‘ Perhaps it is not a drawing-room after all.” Mr. Kittleshot 
said this to himself not knowing that he was staring steadily at 
his host. The Squire was an interesting study as he lay back in 
a low chair, a little tired with the long rehearsal, but with the 
pleased and contented look of a man who possessed everything 
his soul could desire. He was much above the average height, 
and when Mr. Kittleshot recovered his own seeing power he 
admitted to himself that the Squire of Ridingdale was a noble- 
looking personage. For a time, indeed, the millionaire forgot 
the puzzle of the apartment and joined in the conversation. 

é The country is—whatever you like to make it,’’—the Squire 
had just replied to Colonel Ruggerson, who in order to provoka 
a friendly dispute was trying to hold a brief for town life. 

A rush of racing boys passed the windows making a noise 
that suggested a charge of cavalry. 

“Ah!” continued the Squire, “ what would our young bar- 
barians be doing in town on such a day as this? There are the 
parks, of course ;—but do London boys play hockey in the 
snow P” . 

The party had gone to the windows to watch the contest, now 
some distance off. Mr. and Mrs. Ridingdale stood hand in hand 
at one window ; the Colonel and Mr. Kittleshot at the other. 

‘Surely all these lads are not Ridingdale’s?”’ the millionaire 
asked.in a low voice. 

“ No. He has only eleven. Some of ’em not big enough 
for hockey. One or two of ’em are visitors: several have come 
to help in the play. One is an adopted son.” 

é“ Adopted!’ exclaimed Kittleshot in a horrified whisper. 

“ Yes,” replied the unmoved Colonel. “And from what I 
gather he is about to adopt another.” _ . 

Mr. and Mrs. Ridingdale were laughing and chatting 
together at the next window, like two happy grown-up children. 

The rush and tumble of big and little lads advanced a trifle 
nearer to the house. Mr. Kittleshot put up his pince-nez. 

“But all these lads in clogs?” he asked, looking puzzled, 
é They are from the village, no doubt ?P ” 

‘+ All the clog-shod lads are Ridingdales. That's one way of 
telling ‘em. Never wear anything else out of doors. Healthiest 
fellows in Yorkshire. Coughs and colds unknown. Sensible 
man, Ridingdale.”’ 








94 The Irish Monthly. 


Mr. Kittleshot gasped. What manner of man had he 
encountered P He had come to rebuke a sybarite and had 
discovered—no, scarcely a Spartan. The millionaire began to 
think vaguely of socialism in connection with the Squire of 
Ridingdale ; but it suddenly occurred to him that quite one half 
of the London Review article that had so seriously disturbed him 
was as fierce an arraignment of socialism as of luxurious living. It 
was just this fact that gave an additional, and a more stinging, 
force to the writer’s argument, A vulgar attack upon the moneyed 
classes in an inferior print was what Mr. Kittleshot could have 
glanced at and passed over as a thing of no account; but a care- 
fully, yet eloquently, worded essay in a journal that was beyond 
the reach of suspicion was something not to be overlooked. 

A bell sounded in the distance and the hockey-players 
instantly made a rush for the front entrance. Mrs. Ridingdale's 
invitation to lunch was not to be refused by Mr. Kittleshot. He 
was beginning to be interested in this strange family. 

“é That's only a sort of dressing-bell,” the Colonel explained 
as the Squire and Mrs. Ridingdale left the room. ‘The gong 
will sound in a quartcr of an hour. Hope you don’t object to 
kids at table. There’ll be lots of ’em to-day. Means dinner for 
them, you know.” 

If Mr. Kittleshot had been pressed upon the point as to 
whether he ‘ objected to kids at table,’ he would probably have 
answered that it depended upon the kind of children they were. 
His own grandchildren he objected to very much indeed— 
especially at table. He had in fact left Hardlow Hall that 
morning in order to escape them. He liked the Colonel a good 
deal, and as the old soldier had long ago given him a standing 
invitation to luncheon, Mr. Kittleshot had gone to the chemist’s 
on the chance of finding the only man in Ridingdale that he really 
knew. Hehad not dreamt of lunching at Ridingdale Hall, much 
less of sitting down to meat with the writer of that wicked article. 

The Lancashire mill owner was nothing if not observant, and 
several times during the meal—it lasted barely three quarters of 
an hcur—he tried to count heads. He did not succéed for the 
simple reason that some of the heads could not be seen from his 
place at Mrs. Ridingdale’s right hand, but he guessed that 
the number exceeded twenty. It was the plainest luncheon he 
had sat down to for perhaps forty years, but not a syallable of 


hp. 








Doings in the Dale. 95 


apology for the boiled beef and rice pudding fell from the lips 
either of host and hostess. As for ‘the kids ’—and scarcely half 
of them had seen him as yet—he admitted to himself that their 
manners were perfect. ‘They did not seem to experience the 
smallest feeling of restraint, and a subdued mpple of merriment 
went on from the beginning of the meal to the end; yet of 
noisiness there was none. His own right hand neighbour was 
the Squire’s eldest son, Hilary,a young giant just turned sixteen, 
who answered the millionaire’s questions about hockey and the 
play with such smiling ease and self-possession, but with such a 
charming boyish frankness, that Mr. Kittleshot was sorry when 
the meal came to an end and the lad with the rest of the youngsters 
disappeared. 

‘““Smoke—don’t you?” asked the Colonel as they left the 
dining-room—as plainly furnished almost as a religious refectory. 

Mr. Kittleshot would like to smoke, he said, and he and the 
Colonel followed the Squire to his den. Any other man but 
Ridingdale would have called it his library. It was a big room, 
and was entirely furnished with books. Only one large picture 
hung in it for the simple reason that the space over the mantel- 
piece was the only uncovered portion of the walls. The big 
writing-table of plain deal had been made by the village 
carpenter. This was the room in which the famous article on 
“ Luxury and Social Disorder’’—and many another brilliant 
essay that Mr. Kittleshot must have read with delight—had been 
penned. 

The Colonel knowing very well that Ridingdale Hall was 
innocent of cigars, produced his case before the Squire could 
uncover the huge tobacco jar that stood upon the writing-table. 
The old warrior’s taste in havannahs was well-known, and both 
Ridingdale and Kittleshot thankfully accepted his offer. 

The millionaire now began to feel nervous. A copy of the 
London Review lay open on the table, and what the Colonel in his 
brusque way might suddenly blurt out filled his friend’s soul with 
apprehension. Not that Mr. Kittleshot had forgiven the writer 
of the article he found so offensive. Sooner or later, if the Squire 
of Ridingdale gave him the opportunity, he would ask for ex- 
planations and make a defence of the class implicitly attacked. 
The present, however, was not the fitting moment. ‘There was 
an afternoon performance of the play, and the Squire was stage 


96 The Irish Month. 


manager. Mr. Kittleshot had gratefully accepted Mrs. Ridingdale’s 
invitation to remain for it. He did not greatly care for children 
even when they were good, but in a very mild sort of way the 
Ridingdale family fascinated him. Moreover, the great man was 
in no hurry to return to Hardlow, and—“ well, hang it,” he said 
to himself more than once, ‘“‘ Ridingdale may be a poor man, but 
he is a gentleman and—the grandson of a peer of the realm.” 

So Mr. Kittleshot strove hard to steer the conversation into a 
safe channel—not an easy task as it proved, for though the Colonel 
said very little, and took an exceedingly short time in saying it, 
his sentences pierced the air at regular intervals like minute guns, 
and something in the incisive way in which he spoke commanded 
attention. 

‘Saw a lad just now I didn’t recognise. Visitor ?”’—he was 
asking. 

é“ Well,” said the Squire with a smile, “I suppose you may 
call him a visitor—for the present. Fact is”—and Ridingdale 
looked very grave—‘he is the son of that unfortunate man 
Bhutleigh. You know the case? ”’ 

“ Bank manager who absconded ? ”’ 

é“ Yes,” said the Squire sadly. ““ His wife is penniless, and 
this lad has come home from an expensive school for the Christmas 
holidays. Mrs. Ridingdale went to see her a few days ago and 
brought the boy here.” 

The Colonel looked at Ridingdale for several seconds without 
speaking. 

“She has scarcely a friend left in the town now, of course,” 
the Squire pleaded, “and the very people who drank her 
champagne a month ago, poor silly woman, are loudest in con- 
demning her extravagances. It is only another of the scores of 
cases of people who slí live beyond their income, and will try to 
get one rung higher on the social ladder. Look here! ’’—Mr. 
Ridingdale rose and took down a great folio book of newspaper 
cuttings. ‘‘ Here are reports of criminal proceedings in similar 
cases, reports that I have myself collected from the papers during 
the last year or two. There is not a single instance here in which 
the forgery, or defalcation, or whatever the crime may have been, 
was not the direct outcome of luxurious living and an attempt to 
keep up appearances the people involved had no sort of claim to.” 

Mr. Kittleshot felt more than uncomfortable. He trembled 








1oinga tn the Dale. 97 


to think what the Colonel’s next remark might lea 1 to. 

“ Come in! ” 

A sturdy specimen of boyhood stood in the doorway —not 
Hilary, but another and a younger brother. 

“ Father, we are just beginning to dress.” 

The Squire excused himself and left the guests alone—to the 
intense relief of one of them. 


OF “———————————— 


IV. 
“ SWEETIE.” 


Ye little household gods that make 

My heart leap lighter with your play, 
And never let it sink and ache 

Unless you are too far away. 


W. S. Lanpor. 


Outside, the winter sun was shining so gaily that the Colonel 
proposed a stroll on the well-swept terrace of the west front. The 
play would not be ready for half an hour or more. 

Mr. Kittleshot was longing to ask many questions, but the 
Colonel’s minute guns gave the other no opportunity. 

é“ All the world and his wife here this afternoon. And to- 
night. Ridingdale entertains Ridingdale to-day.”’ 

They were walking up and down the terrace finishing their 
cigars. Mr. Kittleshot thought he heard the patter of small clogs 
behind him and turned to look. A little boy was following them 
very slowly and at a distance, and something in the child’s 
manner made him pause. 

“It’s Sweetie,” the Colonel said in a low tone. They had 
both turned back to meet the little man. 

é What is wrong with him P”’ whispered the millionaire. 

“ Blind,’ muttered the Colonel. “ Only one of Ridingdale’s 
children that is not sound.” | 

Mr. Kittleshot thought he had never seen anything more 
pathetic than the child’s face and manner. He carried his little 
band with the same grace that was noticeable in all the 
Ridingdales, only as he walked his face was turned to the left as 
though he were listening for a friendly voice. 





98 The Irish Monthly. 


“ I think my Godfather is not far off.” 

Mr. Kittleshot paused as the Colonel advanced. The little 
sentence had chimed in the cold still air like a sudden short ripple 
of silver bells. The unearthliness of the child’s face, now that he 
saw it closely, made the millionaire think of death—and heaven. 

The Colonel had taken the little one into his arms. Sweetie 
looked very happy. 

é They are all so busy to-day,” the child prattled on in a slow 
cadence that sounded like dream music, “and I was afraid of 
being troublesome. Dear Godfather, [am so glad you are here. 
Now I shan’t get lost.” 

“ Been lonely, have you, old chap ?”’ said the Colonel caress- 
ingly. ‘‘ Never mind ; it’s only once in a way. All your slaves 
absent—just for an hour or two.” 

“Oh, Hilary gave me a lovely ride this morning. And I 
knew how busy he was. And since dinner, Harry has been 
teaching me to slide. No, I have not been lonely.” 

“I forgot to say, Sweetie, we're not alone. There is a 
gentleman here—Mr. Kittleshot—who lunched with us to-day.” 

Sweetie’s face fell a little, but he immediately raised his cap 
and said, “ How do you do, sir? ” 

Mr. Kittleshot took one of the child’s hands and pressed it 
tenderly ; but for the life of him he did not know what to say. 
He was trying to think in what foreign gallery he had seen a 
picture of a child-angel whose face was that of Sweetie. ‘A 
cherub in clogs’ was certainly something of a contradiction, but 
the incongruity was scarcely apparent. 'I'o the visitor, at least, 
this apparition of the blind child was so unexpected, so out of 
harmony in a certain way with the strikingly healthy and robust 
band of boys he had seen at play and met at luncheon—had 
introduced such an entirely new element into the family life he 
was only just beginning to be ecquainted with, that the man of 
money experienced a feeling almost akin to fear, and an emotion 
largely made up of reverence. ‘The little lad was barely seven, 
but he spoke with the quaint seriousness of a grown-up person, 
and his white face shone with the light of an intelligence that 
even to the unemotional and unimaginative mill-owner seemed to 
belong to another world than this. 

Ihe trio paced up and down the terrace, Sweetie, with his 
little arm round the Colonel’s neck, talking in a low, clear 





Doings in the Dale. . 99 


dreaming tone of the coming play. He had a part in it, he said, 
and he had to speak the prologue. - 

“Then, old chap, there's no time to lose. We must go 
indoors.”’ 

The Colonel carried him in and took him to a room on one 
side of the entrance hall where the boys kept their out-door 
requirements. Here the old soldier removed Sweetie’s rough 
httle overcoat and snow-covered sabvots, and then carried him to 
the dressing-room, where a knot of devoted brothers began to 
discharge their duty as the little man’s pages of honour. 

Seated in the front row of the auditorium, Mr. Kittleshot 
marvelled at the number of people who already filled the old 
banqueting hall from end toend. Mrs. Ridingdale took her place 
at the piano and began the overture. 

To this day Mr, Kittleshot cannot tell you what was the plot 
of the play, but he always says that it gave him more pleasure 
than anything of the kind he ever saw before. As a man 
with a weakness for music that is simple and direct, the choir of 
fresh young voices appealed to him strongly. He sat like one 
entranced as the gay crowd dispersed after the opening chorus, 
and the crisp dialogue began to make itself heard and understood. 
Came an aria that took the house by storm, and the millionaire 
was distinctly heard crying “ Bravo’’ and “‘ encore.’? Came more 
dialogue, duets and quartets, and with a triumphal chorus the 
curtain fell upon the first act. 

The Colonel who had been on duty behind the scenes now 
came and sat by his friend. 

é“ Like it ?”’ he asked laconically. 

“ Immensely.”’ 

‘“‘Ridingdale asked me to apologise for him. Sorry he had 
not been able to have a talk with you. Awkward day, you know. 
My fault. Better luck later on. How long do you stay at 
Hardlow ? ” : 

Mr. Kittleshot hesitated in making his reply. Only that 
morning he had made up his mind to leave on the following day. 
Since the death of his wife he had been a rover. His own house 
he could not bear, and his son’s establishment was, after a few 
days, hateful to him. He had a few acquaintances in different 
parts of England, but no friends. 

“I—I am not at all sure,” he said after along pause. “I 





100 The Irish Monthly. 


should like to see Mr. Ridingdale again before I leave. [I shall 
be—pleased if he will allow me to call.” 

“Course he will. Any friend of mine—and so on. Drive 
you over whenever you like. By the way—how are you going to 
get home? Better let me take you to Hardlow.”’ 

After some discussion it was settled that they should leave 
directly after the afternoon performance—which included tea. 

When the curtain fell upon the last act, Mr. Kittleshot was 
exhausted with laughter and tears. Little Sweetie had appeared 
in the second act amid applause that almost frightened him. He 
had to intercede with the villain of the piece for the life of an 
only brother, and he had acted his part with such unaffected pathos 
that men found it useless to disguise their weeping. Mr. Kittleshot 
did not attempt to hide his. The pale little figure in a fourteenth 
century dress of white satin clung to the bad-hearted monster (the 
local bass-singer, as a matter of fact) like Arthur clinging to 
Hubert. 

But this was only a passing episode. The opera had in it far 
more of fun than sadness, and when the third act was finished the 
audience spent ten minutes or so in recalling each individual actor 
by name. : 

“ Do any of these boys go to school ?”’ was the first question 
Mr. Kittleshot asked his friend as they drove through the park. 

“ Not one of em. Ridingdale would send ’em if he could. 
Can’t afford it, y’ know.” 

‘Probably they have tutors at home ? ” 

‘Two of em. Lidingdale himself and Father Horbury.” 

“The chaplain, is he ?” 

“ No, and yes. Small chapel half way between this and 
Ridingdale town.” 

“ No private chapel ? ” 

“ An oratory only. Family prayers, and so on.” 

Mr. Kittleshot knew the Colonel was a Catholic, and did not 
like to ask too many questions on this point. 

‘‘ The priest was not there this afternoon ?”’ 

“ Away on a sick call. Will be there to-night.” 

Mr. Kittleshot was grateful to the Colonel for avviding the 
slightest reference to the London Review. Again and again the 
millionaire himself tried to lead up to the subject, but at the 
right moment his courage failed him, He had made himself 





Doings in the Dale. 101 


ridiculous once to-day, and did not wish to do it a second time. 
Yet he could not but talk of the Ridingdales. 

é“ Does it strike you that these young people are different from 
other boys?’ Mr. Kittleshot asked after a time. 

“Very different to some,” the Colonel answered drily. 

“ Where does the difference come in ? ” 

“ Better manners and more brains.” 

‘Just what I myself was thinking. To what do you attribute 
the better manners ? ”” 

“ Heredity to some extent. Early training largely. Religion 
chiefly.”’ 

“The not going to school ”—Mr. Kittleshot began. 

“ Nothing to do with it at all.”.—The Colonel said sharply. — 
“ School improves a good lad. Sometimes a bad one—not always. 
Ridingdale would send everyone of ’em to school if he could. 
They would be just the same—if not better.” 

Mr. Kittleshot was silent. He was thinking of his two grand- 
sons. They have never been to school—were not likely to go. 
School had not spoiled them. But oh, the difference between the 
youngsters of Hardlow and Ridingdale! Each of the young 
Kittleshots had two or three tutors and professors, and each was 
as ignorant as a factory lad and a great deal ruder and more ill- 
mannered. 

Mr. Kittleshot’s mind was in a tumult. An entirely new 
phase of life had opened itself out to him, yet in what this new 
phase precisely consisted he could not have said. He had heard 
much of music; but then he had been hearing music all his life, 
and a great deal of it had bored him exceedingly. He had ' 
witnessed amateur acting, he who was no stranger to the theatre, 
and it had affected him deeply. He had lunched very badly and 
had peeped into the interior of a dilapidated and half-furnished 
house. He had met people who were not of his set—a man so 
poor that he could not afford to send his boys to school—a man 
that he had proposed to pick a quarrel with. 

“ Do take me to Ridingdale Hall again,” Mr. Kittleshot said 
as he bade the Colonel farewell. “ I fancy the Squire is a man of 
fads.”” 

“ Hasn’t a fad to bless himself with,” the Colonel grunted. 

“ Well, you know what I mean. A bit Quixotic, say?” 

“ Never met a man less so.” 


102 The Irish Monthy. 


“At any rate, you'll admit he’s no ordinary man, and his 
family.”’ . 

“Ah!” cried the Colonel, gathering up the reins, “there I 
agree with you.” 


Davip BEARNE, 8.J. 


(To be continued). 


CALAMRAY. 


OUR rains were soft, your dews were sweet, 
That flashed at night with gems like gold, 
That kissed the proud moon’s jewelled feet. 
With love no changing springs make cold: 
O Calamray, green Calamray ! 
From me this day, so far away, 
The heart wanes chill, the face wanes old: 
An exile’s love no song hath told. 


Your doors stood wide from light to light, 
The board was spread, the seats were set ; 

For one who wandered through the night 
The vacant place was waiting yet : 

O Calamray, loved Calamray ! 

My hoart is cold, my hair is grey ; 

The years, the years, since last we met, 

Have lined my brows with care and fret. 


Your young were old in thought and grace, 
Your old were young in grace and cheer, 

Some breath from June stayed round each face, 
No east winds blew the livelong year : 

O Calamray, sweet Calamray ! 

A ship sails out across the bay, 

A ship sails in and anchors near— 

They sail for home while I bide here. 








Calamray. 103 


The waves are churned to foam and snow 
By ships that touch the Irish shore; 
The sea-birds come, the sea-birds go, 
To find the land of my heart's core : 
O Calamray, bright Calamray ! 
This heart so worn were young and gay, 
Could I but pass the ocean’s floor, 
And tread on Irish earth once more. 


Your maids with face as sweet as May, 
With soul more white than virgin snow— 

Some wander now at close of day, 
Where tasseled maize and olive grow: 

O Calamray, dear Calamray ! 

They sing your songs far, far away ; 

They sing of you where oceans flow, 

They sing and sigh for long ago. 


Your sun-soiled lovers clean of heart, 
Your stalwart lovers soft of hand, 

Where e’er they wander wide apart, 
Their love is yours on sea or land: 

O Calamray, our Calamray ! 

Of you we think the night and day, 

And see you standing as you stand, 

The fairest vale the winds e’er fanned. 


Where Slievenamon in grandeur gleams, 
And through the beech the squirrels leap, 

I hear, in dreams, your mountain streams, 
A surge that haunts my sleepless sleep. 

O Calamray, my Calamray ! 

Of you J dream the livelong day; 

Your face within my heart I keep, 


An exile’s tears for you I weep. 
ALICE EsMonveE. 


( 104 ) 


CLAVIS ACROSTICA. 
A Key To “ Dusuin Acrostics.” 
Parr XII. 


Any one who read the solutions contained in our January 
instalment must have noticed that among the lights of No. 20 
base was a misprint for /ease. In the same paragraph I was not 
able to explain why “incisor” was described by “ FE” the most 
eminent survivor of this band of Acrosticians—‘‘ a carping cynic’s 
cruel cutting tooth.” This brought me the following from 
Plymouth : 


‘¢ Forgive a hurried scrawl] re Incisors as belonging to cynics especially. The 
chief incisor is the popularly called eye-tooth, known to anatomists as the canine. 
‘I'he connection between things canine and cynic is obvious. ‘’Tis all the same in 
the Greek.’ | 

“No. 22 is ‘Nutmeg’ obviously. ‘The thread is very neatly worked in, but 
the crown of custard is too obvious when it has allowed one who never attempted 
an acrostic before to guess it. 

“ How many of your readers will see that the first light is Nym the companion 
of Sir John Falstaff? ‘ Zag’ of courseisthelast. But the middle light is darkness 
tome, What light of the bar begins with U and ends with E ? 

“This is the first and last Acrostic I shall attempt. ‘I'hey are a short cut to 
grey hairs, mental aberration, indigence, tea-drinking, and dyspepsia.”’ 


Like my accomplished correspondent, I should give up in 
despair the second light of No. 22, if I had not Mr. Reeves’ 
cabier to fall back upon. It gives “ Ude” and adds the not 
unnecessary explanation, “ the author of a celebrated cookery- 
book.” The bar, then, is the luncheon-bar ; but perhaps the 
light is unfairly obscure, since our most ingenious solver, A. C., 
was puzzled also. All the rest he has solved accurately. He 
seems to have improved on Mr. Reeves in the last light of No. 21. 


In this fierce contest, and at Epsom too, 
Was well avenged the fight of Waterloo. 


Mr. Reeves appends to this the note: “At this time the success of 
the French horse Gladiateur on the English turf was remark- 
"* ” Mr. Harris’s lines seem to require a special racecourse to 
ith Epsom ; yet Mr. Reeves fills up R—E with race, whereas 








Clama Acrostica. 105 


A. C. suggests Raintree with a note of interrogation after it. 
That mark of dubiousness was necessary, for alas! there is no 
Raintree but Aintree. A horsey friend tells me that the Chester 
racecourse is Roodee; this name answers our requirements, but 
did Gladiateur triumph there ” About the year 1865 he won the 
three great events, the Two Thousand Guineas, the St. Leger, 
and the Derby—one we believe of the six horses who have gained 
that “triple crown.” 

As some new readers may not understand the construction of 
these ingenious compositions of which we are dribbling out the 
authorized solutions, we may give at once the answer of No. 23, 
which follows next. It is called a double Double Acrostic : it 
links together acrostics of Summer and Winter, and again of 
Spring and Autumn. The only general description of the subject 
is the opening couplet — 

Let poets praise the daughters of the sea, 
Why should her sons unsung unhonoured be ? 


This question puzzled me till I reverted to the fact that the subject 
is the seasons and that seasons may be pronounced sea-sons. 
Very conveniently for acrostic purposes the names of the four 
seasons consists each of six letters. Summer and Winter are 
spelled by the first and the last letter of six words that are thus 
subtly disguised by B. 
1. 
My teeth are strong, you guard your trunks in vain, 
I can destroy them, though against the grain. 


2. 
The history student knows my name full well, 
And through my land’s divisions this will tell. 


3. 
Monarch and slave, the blesséd and the cursed, 
The noblest of all creatures, and the worst. 
4. 
é I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,”’ 
But many a bank my time and treasure knows. 
5. 
That which the poor can seldom taste, but which 
Flies also the caprices of the rich. 
6. 
Broken by you, yet still our sport the same, 
I share the toil, that you may win the game. 


Vou. xxvi. No. 296. 8 





106 The Irish Monthly. 


These six couplets stand for saw, Uri, man, mint, ease, and 
retriever ; but some of them are hardly guessable. The initials 
spell Summer, the finals Winter. The following couplets do the 
same for Spring and Autumn. 


B. 
1. 
A place of rest, where parties don’t run high, 
No foe to truth—it helps mankind to lie. 
2. 
One great experience this great name discloses, 
A bed of gold is not a bed of roses. 
3. 
As down parade in time the soldiers pace, 
Full oft they hear me round each veteran’s face. 
4. 
Go, search the winning gambler’s desk, and look 
What debts of honour no evasion brook. 
5. 
‘This word gave rise to many a Papal tussle : 
If still it lives I know not, ask Lord Russell. 
6. 


The hero stands the charge unmoved, we know ; 
But give me one small charge, and off I go. 
B. 


The foregoing describe in order, sofa, Peru, right, 1.0. U., 
nepotism, and gun. Some fair punning here, as where right 
reminds the poet of “ Right about face!” in No. 3. 

The next two in order are very long, dealing with crinoline 
and petticoat, with croquet and cricket. We pass them over for 
the present and leave our readers to puzzle their brains over this 
terse and clever No. 26, by the celebrated O. 


Severed, we summon to action, 
Blent, we're an obsolete fraction. 


1. Seat of successive empires lost and won ; 
2. Seat of that seat, proud region of the sun. 





( 107 ) 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


The books to be brought under the notice of our readers this 
month are so numerous that we must confine ourselves to even 
narrower limits than usual. Fortunately the name of the book, the 
name of its author, and a sentence or two of appreciation are generally 
sufficient to enable the readers concerned to form a shrewd judgment 
as to whether or not the book in question will suit them. 


1. Messrs. Burns and Oates have sent us two new works and 
several new Editions. The “Life of Blessed John of Avila, Secular 
Priest, called the Apostle of Andalusia,” is for the first time 
translated from the Italian of Father Longaro degli Oddi, 8.J., whose 
work appeared as far back as 1753. The translation has been edited 
by Father McLeod, 8.J. Those who remember the allusions in the 
best spiritua] writers to the Venerable John of Avila will be glad to 
have the biography of this most holy man. It forms the ninety-seventh 
volume of the Quarterly series carried on for so many years by the 
learned and pious Father Coleridge, 8.J. 

The same firm has published ‘‘India, a sketch of the Madura > 
Mission,” by the Rev. H. Whitehead, S.J. A map of the Mission is 
placed in front, and a very edifying and interesting account of its 
changing history and its present state, is given in eight well-printed 
chapters. We trust that this book will enlist the sympathies of many 
readers for this corner of the Christian Church. 

The same publishers have issued a new edition of ‘‘ For a King 
By T.S. Sharowood. This historical romance has been well conceived 
and well executed, and its presént form is extremely cheap. 

We should have mentioned earlier, as it does not appear merely 
in a new edition, “ Bruno and Lucy, or the ways of the Lord are 
wonderful,” from the German of Wilhelm Herchenbach. It has had 
the good fortune to be revised by Father Eyre, SJ. The German 
writer deals chiefly with English characters, and this does not heighten 
the verisimilitude of his story, but the readers for whom it is intended 
are not hypercritical about such details and will find “ Bruno and 
Lucy ’’ wholesome and pleasant reading. 

Another new edition is the ‘‘ Catholic Pilgrim’s Guide to Rome” 
which, besides the name of the publishers Burns and Oates, mentions 
on the titlepage the English Convent at Rome, 16 Via San Sebastiano, 
Piazza di Spagna. It is full of most useful information for Catholic 
pilgrims to the Eternal City, and will serve as a very necessary sup- 
plement to the ordinary guide-books. 


1? 


108 The Irish Monthly. 


The last publication of Messrs. Burns and Oates that we shall 
mention at y1esent is the third edition of Lady Martin’s Life of Don 
Bosco. ‘Though containing more than three hundréd pages, this 
edition is given for one shilling net. 


2. The Catholic Truth Society, 69 Southwark Bridge Road, 
London, have issued, for two shillings in a large quarto form with 
illustrations on every page, ‘A Bible Picture Book for Catholic 
Children,” by Lady Amabel Kerr. Why is the name of the artist not 
put forward ? 

One of the prettiest stories added of late to our stock of Catholic 
fiction is '' Carmen’s Secret,” by Baroness Pauline Von Hugel. It is 
very attractively produced for one shilling and sixpence. Somewhat 
Jarger and dearer is Miss C. M. Home’s ‘' Under the Red King, a tale 
of the times of Saint Anselm.” Other C. T. 8. publications are 
‘‘Deacon Douglas, or talks with Nonconformists,” by the Rev. 
George Bampfield: Nos. 16-20 of the Fourth Series of Lady 
Herbert’s Wayside Tales ; ‘Saint Francis of Assisi,” a lecture for 
use with the magic lantern; and, more important than any of these 
“ Confessio Viatoris,” a most interesting account by Mr. Kegan Paul 
of his conversion to the Catholic faith. 


3. The collector who would set himself to gather all the school 
magazines published on both sides of the Atlantic would require a 
large separate library to house the collection. Here we have—beside 
the fifth Number of Zhe Clongownian, which is brought out with 
sumptous elegance and with a quite bewildering wealth of illustration, 
portraits of Chief Baron Palles, Chief Justice O’Brien, Sir Richard 
Martin, Sir Francis Cruise, Mr. R. P. Carton, Q.C., Mr. Charles 
O'Connor, Q.0., and many other members of the newly founded 
Clongowes Union, along with a larke number of pictures of Irish 
places and persons—beside the brilliant Olongowes Union No. of this 
periodical, we have to welcome two college magazines which come to 
us for the first time from places as far apart as Mungret and 
Mangalore. The “ Mungret Annual,” by its very name, limits itself 
most judiciously to a single issue a year. It is admirably printed 
with illustrations by the local firm of Guy and Co., of Limerick, who 
need not fear comparison with similar work executed in Dublin, 
London, and New York. Besides its engrossing interest for Mungret 
students of the present day, a collection of the Mungret Annual will 
be of priceless value for future generations. 

The ‘‘Mangalore Magazine” is the organ and record of St. 
Aloysius’ College, Mangalore, in south-western India. It very properly 
begins with a sketch of the life of the first rector of tho College, 
Father Willy, who died last April. The Magazine is strictly personal 





Notes on New Books. 109 


and local in its topics, but it will have an interest for many outside 
the pupils of the College. To these two new beginners we wish a 
long and happy and useful life. 

4. “ American Authors 1795-1895.” This most interesting work 
has been compiled by Mr. P. K. Foley of Boston, who describes it in 
the sub-title as ‘‘a bibliography of first and notable editions chrono- 
logically arranged with notes.” Only five hundred octavo copies 
have been printed for subscribers. The introduction, by Mr. Walter 
Leon Sawyer, who has probably a considerable local reputation, 
is lively but rather unintelligible. Three hundred and fifty ample 
pages give the dates and many bibliographical particulars of nearly 
all the prose and verse published by Americans during the last 
hundred years. The work must have cost Mr. Foley years of research 
and will be prized by all lovers of books. 


5. The Dala of Modern Ethics Examined. By the Rev. John J. 
Ming, 8. J. (New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Benziger Brothers). 

Father Ming is Professor of Moral Philosophy in Canisius College, 
Buffalo, New York. In 1894 he published the above work, which 
has now reappeared in a new edition, with inaccuracies corrected and 
obscurities removed, as the Author states in the briefest possible 
preface. This rate of rapidity would not satisfy a popular novelist, 
but it isa remarkable success for a Catholic professor discussing in 
America ethical problems according to the principles of Christian 
philosophy. The morality of human acts is discussed from all points 
of view in sixteen chapters and four hundred pages, bringing 
philosophy up to date by examining the principles of all the moderns, 
Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, Auguste Comte, W. H. Marrock, 
etc. The publishers have brought out this excellent work with the 
best type and paper. The solid sobriety, nay austerity, of the bind- 
ing is typioal of the style of the work itself, its thought as well as its 
diction. 

6. Another work of a very different kind, issuing from the same 
Press, is ‘‘ That Malcap Set at St. Anne's,” by Marion J. Brunowe. 
We are not qualified to decide how far it is true to life in a Convent- 
School in the United States ; but we think that a member of one of 
our teaching Orders at home would hardly consider it a particularly 
useful book for girls. We cannot even decide whether Miss Brunowe 
really understands American boarding-school life or whether she is 
only an intelligent outsider, like her reviewer. We must try and 
get the opinion of an expert on “ That Madcap Set at St. Anne’s.” 
Why have the Nuns such outlandish names as Sister Berenice and 
Sister Williamana? They are not much better off for names than 
Sister Suspiciosa in ‘‘ Jinx’s Baby.” 








110 . ‘The Irish Monthly. 


7. Nine editions of a Saint's life in half a dozen years! This 
very unusual success has befallen the Tercentenary Life of &t. 
Aloysius Gonzago, written by the 1892 Rhetoric Class of St. Francis 
Xavier’s College, New York. The names of the sixteen youthful 
authors are appended to the preface; and we notice that, out of the 
sixteen, all except one are unmistakeably Irish. The biography is 
attractively produced by the Publishers whom we have just named 
twice in succession and who seem to do more than all the other 
Catholic publishers together on both sides of the Atlantic. 

8. 4A Manual of Temperance. By the Rev. James Doogan, 0.8.F.C. 
(Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co.) 

Father Doogan gives an awkward name (which we suppress) to 
this second enlarged Edition of his very useful work. If the printing 
and binding have been done in India, it shows they have nothing to 
learn from European workmen. Two hundred pages furnish a great 
variety of very interesting matter about the evils of Intemperance, 
and give many edifying particulars about the career of the great 
Apostle of Temperance, Father Mathew. Striking testimonies are 
quoted from Cardinal Manning, Cardinal Vaughan, and many Irish 
and American bishops and priests. Sundry newspapers, and even 
Father Price’s ‘‘ Sick Calls,” are drawn upon; and altogether we 
know of no richer storehouse of materials for a temperance advocate 
than this most industrious compilation. The European agent for its 
sale is Mr. Robert Washbourne, 18 Paternoster, Row, London. 

9. Mr. Andrew Lang lately stated ‘‘At the Sign of the Ship” 
that, unless in very exceptional cases, a hundred copies is a maximum 
sale for a volume of verse. At that rate ‘‘ All Day Long: Ejaculations 
and Prayers in Verse” by the Rev. Matthew Russell, 8.J., is a very 
exceptional case indeed, for it bears on the titlepage of a new edition 
just issued the words ‘‘ Tenth Thousand.” Two circumstances help 
to explain the marvel: it costs only a penny, and it is published by 
the Catholic Truth Society, 69 Southwark Bridge Road, London, 
8.E. 

10. Confasaon and Communton. For Religious and for those who 
communicate frequently. By the Author of ‘First Communion.” 
(London: Burns and Oates). 

Any one who knows the large volume of the Quarterly Series 
entitled ‘ First Communion ” will welcome this much smaller book 
by the same writer. In spite of its bulk and solidity the former 
work has already run into a second edition. To the present book 
Father Herbert Thurston, 8.J., has again contributed a useful preface. 
Its cheapness and its value will make many Superiors secure more 
than one copy for their convents. The table of contents ought to 











Notes on New Books. . 111 


have run into the blank page that follows it, by dividing each section 
into two—‘' Before Communion ”’ and ‘‘ After Communion ”—or 
rather by naming the pages where these divisions begin. It is not 
fair to quote Father Faber’s hymns so largely without ever naming 
him in a footnote. May God be blessed for all the good that his 
fascinating prose and verse have wrought during this last half century. 
This fresh contribution to our eucharistic literature will have its part 
also in the most sacred moments of many lives. We wish for it a wide 
and constant circulation. 


11. Retreat Conferences for Convents, being a sertes of exhortations 
addressed to Religious. By the Rev. Charles Cox, Oblate of Mary 
Immaculate. (London: R. Washbourne). 

Though three conferences are assigned to each of the seven days 
of retreat with one before and one after, the subjects and the treat- 
ment belong rather to the class of considerations than to that of 
meditations strictly so called. Father Oox’s book is better adapted 
for spiritual reading, and its modern style will make it a welcome 
addition to Convent libraries. 

12. We have again to announce several new editions and new 
publications issued by Benziger Brothers, New York, Cincinnati, and 
Chicago. It is enough for us to name the second edition of 
‘¢ Canonical Procedure in Disciplinary and Criminal Cases of Clerics : 
a Systematic Commentary on the ‘Instructio B.O. Episcopis et 
Regularibus 1880.” It was written by a German priest, Father 
Droste, and translated by an American, but edited and considerably 
modified by Dr. Sebastian Messmer, Professor of Theology in Seton 
Hall, New Jersey. 

The same publishers issue a Fourth Edition of ‘‘ Our Own Will 
and how to detect it in our actions,” by the Rev, J. Allen, D.D.,, 
which was recommended in an effective preface by the late Dr. 
Ricards, in whose South African diocese Dr. Allen was then labouring. 

From Benziger also we have received a useful book in Latin, 
giving a brief account in a sentence or two of each of the ecclesiastica] 
writers and Church historians from the earliest times down to our 
own day. For instance, the last pages tell us about Cardinal Pitra, 
Cardinal Newman, Dollinger, Freppel, Brother Henry Foley, 8.J., 
John Gilmary Shea, Professor Gilmartin of Maynooth, Bishop Hefele ' 
the Rev. John Morris, 8.J., John Baptist de Rossi end Jungmann. 
This excellent little work begins with some introductory dissertations 
and ends with the Pope’s letter on historical studies. We notice that 
the admirable summary of the life and labours of Father Bollandus, 
S.J., is incorrectly numbered in the index. 

A beautifully printed ‘‘ Sacristy Manual ” is called on the titlepage 


112 The Irish Monthly. 


‘‘Rituale Compendiosum Sacristiae Destinatum” which is further 
stated to be ‘Ex Rituali Romano novissime edito desumptus.” 
Through whose negligence does a masculine participle agree with a 
neuter noun? And if Chicago is latinised, why does not Fratres take 
the place of ‘‘ Brothers ?” 

Finally, the same energetic publishers have sent to us the Life of 
St. Catherine of Sienna written anew and very well written bya 
medical doctor, Edward L. Ayme. The countless clients of this most 
interesting Saint will welcome this holy and beautiful book. 

12. We rejoice to chronicle the eager welcome that has been given 
to ‘Songs of Sion,” which many consider the most elegant volume 
that has ever issued from the Dublin press. Many very favourable 
criticisms have been passed by Irish and English journals on these 
holy and exquisite poems of Sister Mary Stanislaus, the poet-daughter 
of Denis Florence Mac Carthy. 

18. Monsignor Molloy’s ‘Shall and Will” has been more 
intelligently reviewed by some of the English provincial newspapers, 
such as Zhe Liverpool Courter and The Birmingham Gazette, than by any 
London critic. Very appreciative notices have appeared in Zhe 
Scotsman and other journals of high standing, recognizing Dr. Gerald 
Molloy’s research, ingenuity, and acuteness of judgment, and his 
skill in weaving his laboriously collected materials into this masterly 
treatise, the first to treat the subject exhaustively and systematically. 

14. The good Nuns who lately applied in vain at Pohlmann’s 40 
Dawson Street, Dublin, for copies of Lyra Cords are requested to 
send their messenger there again, or to write directly to the Author 
at the address given at the top of our first page of advertisements, 
86 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin. 

15. Messrs. Eason and Son, Abbey Street, Dublin, have sent us 
samples of a new reprint edition of “ Holy Childhood, a Book of 
Simple Prayers and Meditations for Little Children,” by Rosa 
Mulholland, at various prices according to the binding. Even the 
sixpenny copy is very neatly bouud and printed. We wonder how 
many thousands of this wonderful little book have now been put into 
circulation. Its patrons have hardly had their attention drawn 
emphatically enough to another pious little book by the same author 
and the same publishers—“ Spiritual Counsels for the Young : a Book 
of Simple Meditations.” This book was written by Lady Gilbert for 
readers more mature than the innocent legions to whom “ Holy 
Childhood ” is so dear as their first prayerbook. 





MARCH, 18608. 


eT AE SE 





THE IRISH CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY QUESTION. 


Tre Late JupcE O'HAGAN $ VIEws. 


HEN Madame de Navarro waited on Cardinal Manning 
after she had retired from the stage, he told her that he 
was glad she was no longer an actress, because whenever he 
inveighed against the perils of the theatrical profession, Miss 
Mary Anderson was sure to be brought forward as an argument 
on the other side. In the same way, when there was question of 
the dangers run by Catholic students in Trinity College, Dublin, 
people have often pointed to such men as the-late Judge O’ Hagan 
as proving the contrary. That eminent and deeply religious man 
knew best the ordeal he had passed through, and he was in private 
and in public the most earnest advocate of the expediency of 
surrounding Catholic youths with all possible Catholic influences 
during all the period of their higher education. I remember him 
towards the end of his life starting the question how each of those 
present would make use of immense wealth if it were at their 
disposal. Hospitals, churches, poor schools, etc., were spoken of, 
His investment would have been directed to the higher education 
of Catholics, and plainly T. C. D., in any shape or form, would 
not have satisfied him. Speaking after inaugural lectures of the 
Catholic University Historical Society, he often took occasion 
to state that he had never wavered in his devotion to the cause of 
Catholic University education. But the fullest expression of his 
views may be found in The Dublin Review, so far back as September, 
1847, when he was a youthful barrister of only 25 years of age. 


Vou. xxvi. No. 297. 9 


8 


114 The Irish Monthly. 


The article is a review of “ The Constitutional History of the 
University of Dublin,” by Denis Caulfield Heron, Mr. Heron 
was one of four clever lads from Newry who were in Trinity 
College together, two.Catholics and two Protestants. His reviewer 
was another of them ; and the third was a young fellow called 
Ingram who two or three years before had spent a few hours at 
certain verses which began with the question ‘‘ Who fears to speak 
of 98?” and which were to do far more to preserve his name 
than all the work of his after life not yet over.” He alone survives, 
for the fourth of those Newry lads died many years ago—as gifted 
as any of them, though the reputation of Frederick William 
McBlain did not get beyond the circle of his comrades of the 
legal profession. . 

There was a good deal of northern grit in the character of 
Denis Caulfield Heron; and he showed it in his persistence in 
fighting for the Scholarship which he had won in the year 1843, 
but from which he was excluded as a Catholic. The results of 
that fight do not concern us now, nor the book that grew out of 
it, but only the article that John O’Hagan wrote upon that book 
in The Dublin Review. We shall merely recall the fact that up to 
so late a date as we have just mentioned a Scholarship in Trinity 
College could only be gained by a Catholic through apostacy ; and 
alas, many paid that price. It is fearful to think that this 
degrading system prevailed till the date of the article which we 
are about to cite. Mr. Heron’s appeal was dismissed mainly on 
the ground that Trinity College was an essentially Protestant 
institution. In his “ History ” (page 192) he says :— 

‘““There have been many amongst the Fellows of ‘Trinity 
College who dated their Protestantism from the time when they 
‘turned for Scholarship.’ ‘The apostacy for Scholarshipin Trinity 
College, even now, excites but little surprise. Of those who thus 
conform, some remain in their new creed, and even become 
ministers of the Kstablished Church ; and others, on the expiration 
of the five years during which Scholarship lasts, return to the 
profession of the Catholic faith, after having profaned with 


* Dr. John Kells Ingram has just succeeded tothe Vice-Provostship of Trinity 
College on the death of the Rev. Dr. Carson, whose only literary achievements 
(we are told in The Irish Times) were contributions to a little Protestant journal 
bearing the unsavoury souper name of ‘‘ The Catholic Layman.’’ A curious 
organ for the Vice- Provost of an institution to which Catholic students are supposed 
*~*- welcomed on equal terms. 





The Irish Catholic University Question. 115 


unholy lips the Sacrament of the Eucharist.” 

é“ Ministers of the Established Religion.” This accounts for 
the many Catholic names among the Protestant clergy. In this 
way and in other ways Trinity College has been responsible for 
many a venal perversion, for many a lost faith, for much glorified 
Souperism on a heroic scale. 


‘‘ Lie hid,” she cried, ‘‘ ye venomed darts, 
Where mortal eye may shun you ; 

Lie hid! For oh, the stain of hearts 
That bled for me is on you—”’ 


and the worse stain of those craven hearts that refused to suffer 
for the faith for which their fathers had suffered and died. 

But we must not forget that it is the sentiments on University 
Education entertained by John O’Hagan in his early manhood, 
just after he had passed brilliantly through Trinity, that we have 
promised to set before our readers, After denouncing with norror 
the miserable and disgraceful facts we have referred to, he asks 
what remedy is to be proposed for this state of things," and he 
answers thus :— 

* * * 

The popular idea.on this point is simply to abolish religious 
tests in the college altogether, and then let all sects fight their 
way on equal ground, and without any temptation to apostacy. 
If the Catholics of Ireland be content with this, to this they have 
an undeniable right. Trinity College is the national university 
of Ireland supported by Irish lands, and to the benefit of its endow- 
ments all Irishmen have an indisputable title. If we were of 
opinion that such an arrangement would be perfectly safe and 
satisfactory, if we believed that the external mercenary temptation 
of a scholarship or fellowship exhausted all the danger with which 
the faith of a Catholic is threatened in the college, we should 
feel light of heart on the matter, for such a reform 1s most simple 
in the conception, and would be comparatively easy in the attain- 
ment. But our ideas on the subject are very different. We 
regard the position of Catholics in Trinity College as one perilous 
to their religion, putting their allurements to apostacy out of the 
question, and we scarcely see the possibility of setting things on a 


© The passages which follow begin at page 245 of the 23rd Volume of 
The Dedlin Review. ' 


116 The Irish Monthly. 


right basis in this particular, without breaking-up and re-casting 
of the constitution of the university altogether. 

To comprehend this we should be aware how thoroughly 
Protestant Trinity College is, not merely in its constitution, but 
in Me spirit, atmosphere, and teaching. It is so in its teaching, 
so far as it can be with any appearance of neutrality. Catholics, 
it is true, are not bound to attend catechetical lectures or 
examinations ; they are not taught absolute anti-Catholic theology. 
But they are taught anti-Catholic philosophy, a much more subtle 
and efficient agent. They are taught Locke, with his rationalizing 
material tendencies, and his open scorn of Catholic mysteries. 
They are taught Paley and Butler, excellent and useful books if 
read with proper correctives, but which from their very excellence 
and from the assumption running through them that Christianity 
means the Protestant scheme of Christianity and none other, are 
calculated to have influences most injurious to Catholicity. They 
are taught what is called “ the Scotch school” of metaphysics, 
the very basis of which is the sufficiency of the human under- 
standing to measure itself and everything else, and an overweening 
contempt for the whole race of Catholic philosophers, who are 
lumped together under the title of schoolmen. We say it is im- 
possiblethat such reading, unalloyed and uncounteracted, should not 
insensibly warp the mind of a young Catholic. Most probably 
he does not at first perceive the opposition between the spirit of 
such philosophy and the spirit of his faith. He thinks very likely 
that those metaphysics may be made to square with any form of 
belief and with Catholicity among the rest, and he may be quite 
right as to the bare metaphysical dogma. But his cast of thought, 
his mode of regarding spiritual and supernatural things, becomes 
absolutely Protestantized; and if he should come (as he un- 
doubtedly will) to have theological disputes with his Protestant 
fellow students, he finds his weakness in supporting his faith 
under the influence of the common metaphysical ideas, and is 
thrown into doubt and perplexity. And if, when his range of 
reading extends, he makes acquaintance with the French 
philosophers who have taken up the principles of Locke, and 
developed them into absolute atheism and materialism, how can 
he, with his outworks thus shattered, hope to defend the citade) 
of his belief? And to turn from metaphysics and moral 
~hilosophy to other studies: some few years ago, the professorship~ 





The Irish Catholic University Question. 117 


of modern history was revived (or rather its duties were, the 
office and the salary never ceased) and examinations were 
appointed, with premiums for proficiency. This examination does 
not of course form a compulsory part of the course, but the nature 
of the study is such as to be necessarily attractive to young men. 
Now what have been the books selected in this department ? 
Works full of the old shallow falsehoods about the middle ages, 
and the Catholic Church and the clergy, with not a whisper to 
suggest how many of those fasehoods -have been refuted and 
exposed of late years. What books P—Hume and Robertson, 
such as we all know them, Hallam, Dr. Miller’s Philosophy of 
History, showing, amongst other things, how God providentially 
disposed matters in Europe for diffusion of Gospel light and 
truth at the time of the Reformation. Or if we seek beyond these, 
we find the productions of the modern French school, such creed- 
less rationalists as Guizot, or such anti-Catholic fanatics as Thierry. 
We may be tolerably certain that none of the profound works 
that have appeared during the last twenty or thirty years, putting 
the Catholicity of the middle ages in its true light, is ever put 
into the hands of the student. It would be vain to expect 
Schlegel’s Philosophy of History to be offered for examination 
instead of Dr. Miller’s. But we shall be asked, do we expect 
Proteatant teachers in a College, five-sixths of whose students are 
Protestants, to offer to their pupils works tending indirectly to 
favour Catholicism? We do not expect it; that is precisely what 
we mean to say: but as little can we expect that works tending 
not indirectly at all, but very directly and pointedly to slander 
and degrade the Catholio religion, should not produce their effects 
on the minds of those who read them. 

So much as to actual teaching: the Protestant atmosphere of 
the college is even more powerful in its influence. The whole 
public opinion and cast of thought which the Catholic students 
finds around him is essentially Protestant. His tutors, whom he 
is bound to listen and look up to, are clergymen of the established 
Church; his intimate and chosen friends will be in all probability 
Protestants: controversy is a thing of necessity. Some good 
may possibly come of this, in the way of allaying bigotry and 
dissipating prejudice. The Catholic may succeed in persuading 
those of his circle, that our religion does not absolutely inculcate 
perjury and murder, that the Pope cannot dispense with moral 





118 The Irish Monthly. 


obligations, or give license to commit sin, and that Roman 
Catholics themselves are like other people, and may be loved as 
well as hated. Heaven forbid we should conceal or underrate any 
good that is effected in the breaking down of prejudice and the 
diffusion of Christian charity. But we should not forget at what 
disadvantage, and with what danger to himself, the young 
Catholic enters the arena of theological discussion. Well grounded 
iu controversy it is almost out of the question that he should be, 
while his opponents have all their commonplaces ready at hand 
in the armoury of the Divinity School. He is assaulted with 
texts of Scripture whose perversion he is not theologian enough 
to expose, with the fualsest statements of Church History, easily 
made but not so easily confuted. And his situation, as one 
of a minority, and combating against inveterate prejudice, makes 
him of necessity take up a low, merely defensive and apologetic 
position, instead of the high vantage ground becoming a son of 
the Church. It is just possible that under peculiar circumstances 
and with a rare constitution of mind, this sort of controversial 
warfare may operate to confirm the student’s belief in Catholicity. 
But it is for the rule we provide, not for the exception, and it is 
too plain for argument that the generai result must be the un- 
fastening of religious conviction. 

Again: whatsoever religion is presented to his eyes at all, 
within the walls of 'Lrinity College, is presented in a Protestant 
form. Not that amid mechanic routine and a worldliness tingling 
to the finger-ends, there is much positive religious zeal of any 
kind ; still among such a number there will be some pious men, 
whose lives exhibit the effect that any Christian belief, any faith 
in the New Testament, will exercise on those who sincerely try to 
obey its dictates. The Divinity students, in spite of the character 
they have got outside of the walls, and notwithstanding the fact 
that among them are always to be found some of the greatest 
scapegraces in college (a fact explicable by the gross want of the 
slightest supervision over those whose situation requires so much, 
and by the rule, corrupt.io optimi fit pessima) are on the whole 
much more moral and orderly than the rest of the students, and 
naturally so, if we are to expect a man’s studies to produce any 
‘effect upon his life. ‘lhe result of all these manifold influences— 
a result pressed upon the young Catholic from every side, and in 
averv shape, is, that after all there is no difference between one 


The Irish Catholic Uniseratty Queation. 119 


religion and another; that a Catholic who acts up to his faith 
will be a good man, and a Protestant the same; that the two 
religions are but different modes of worship and thanksgiving to 
the same God, who in all probability looks down on both with an 
equal eye, weighing not the creeds but the character of their 
professors ; that each has produced its persecutors and martyrs, 
its zealots and hypocrites, its saints and sinners; that as a man’s 
profession of faith is the result of a thousand accidents independent 
of his will, it is impossible it could either serve or injure him in 
the sight of heaven; that Catholicsand Protestants are filled with 
foolish prejudices against one another, and that the great bane 
and curse of the world is bigotry and theologio bitterness. Thus 
does absolute indifferentism come in the guise of tolerance and 
Christian charity, while Deism and Pantheism, and all the foul 
vapours of France, and of the pit, hover not far distant. 

Nor should we forget how, during all this time, the great 
safeguard is almost sure to be gone. By a miracle, or little short 
of it, a young Catholic might continue, during his college career, 
a faithful attendant on the sacraments. ‘There is everything to 
withdraw him from them, and nothing, humanly speaking, to 
attract him towards them. It is then too, that the vicious 
passions are in their first bloom and strength, and upon their 
gratification the peculiarly lax discipline of ‘Trinity College lays 
absolutely no restraint whatever. And we all know what effect 
such offences have in deadening the roots and parching the 
springs of religious faith. 

When, therefore, that temptation to apostacy which Mr. 
Heron considers too much for poverty, but which, or greater than 
which, has not been found too much for hundreds of thousands of 
our poor countrymen whose notions of faith and heresy, of right 
and wrong, had not been previously sapped and corrupted—when 
that temptation assails the Catholic sizar or pensioner of Trinity 
College, what antagonists does it find to fight with? Mainly, 
we fear, human reputation, love of character, and fear of shame. 
If faith kept the garrison, the tempter were easily repulsed. Not 
the most miserable guinguen that ever swallowed the sacrament, 
but had first poisoned the roots of conscience, so as to be half 
persuaded that his act was more criminal in the sight of men than 
of God. ‘*Blame not tempted poverty,” says Mr. Heron. If 
tempted poverty had a real religion, and deliberately sold it for 


Ms = 





| 


\ 


120 The Irish Monthy. 


twenty pounds a-year, we should be very little likely to shelter it 
under a plea that might be extended to Judas Iscariot, who also 
was poor and tempted. But a far more available palliation might 
be found in this, that at that time he has rarely a real religion to 
sell, that it is a contest chiefly between worldly honour on the 
one hand and worldly luore on the other, and that when the latter 
prevails, what appears to the world the first deliberate plunge into 
sin and apostacy is but the seal and rivet of an apostacy long 
before begun. 

It is evident that some inkling of this state of things has got 
into the minds of the Catholics of Ireland, and that it accounts 
for the small and decreasing number of Catholic students. The 
monopoly of the emoluments would not be sufficient todo so. It 
is evident that the vast majority of young men who are sent to 
college, are sent merely with a view to their education and the 
obtaining of a degree ; many, of course, in the hope of gaining 
honours and premiums in their course ; but comparatively few 
with an eye to the pecuniary emoluments of the college. And it 
would seem absurd, if there were not some strong reason in the way, 
that the families of all the Catholic gentry in Ireland, of the 
wealthy merchants of the south, east, and west, of all who bring 
up their sons to professions should not furnish more than thirty 
Catholic students a year to the Irish university. In fact, it is 
Clongowes and Oscott and Stonyhurst, which have no emoluments 
to bestow, that gain the pupils thus lost to Trinity College. 

This is an evil that the abolition of religious tests for collegiate 
offices would not remove. The external mark of the evil influence 
would be no more, but would the influence itself cease to exist P 
Catholics would certainly not apostatize to the Established 
Church, for the current of neither the belief nor unbelief of the 
world is setting in that direction, but they might lose their 
Catholicism just as effectually. The education would not be 
altered—not at least until Catholics had such a majority in the 
governing body of the college that they could direct it according 
to their pleasure; and if such a contingency came about, the 
changes they would introduce might possibly be as unjust to the 


~ religion of Protestants as the present system is to that of Catholics. 


The Protestant atmosphere would not be altered, unless everything 
°O%ected with religion at all was summarily banished from the 
ool “e, which (putting the Catholics out of the question) would 


I 
' see. 





The Irish Catholic Unicersity Question. 221 


be another injustice to Protestants who do not desire education 
without religion. But in any case we could not consent to having 
our Dublin University made like that of London. The fact is, 
that in our age and country it is not merely the effect of actual 
anti-catholic instruction, but the absence of positive Catholic 
instruction, that is to be dreaded. In a time when, through God's 
providence or judgment the intellect of the world is in a great 
measure set apart from His truth, and wanders in a shoreless sea 
of speculation, that influence detrimental to faith, which we believe 
to act so powerfully within the walls of college, is far from being 
bounded there. It breathes through all our current literature, 
through all that a young man could select for himself to train and 
educate his mind. It is at the time when the mind of youth 
becomes impatient of the implicit faith of his boyhood, and in the 
pride of maturing intellect launches into enquiries upon all topics 
in earth and heaven; it is then that it especially requires that 
wise instruction and guidance which leads and does not drive, that 
it needs to be pointed out the errors lying at the root of that 
miscalled philosophy which has usurped the modern throne of 
intellect. If, as we believe, the doctrines of the Church form the 
only truth and the only sure basis of action that a man has or can 
have in this life; that in them lies the key of his destinies, and 
that with them all human wisdom, all true moral ‘and mental 
science must, have relation,—it seems a deadly injustice to make 
no provision whatever for impressing these truths upon the mind 
at a time when it is thirsting for the reception of all truth—to 
send forth the educated Catholic, if not sceptical as to his religion, 
yet holding it as a fragmentary, unassimilated portion of the 
great fabric of his opinions—a portion which exercises no influence, 
or almost none, upon his life. In brief, we never can consent to 
any permanent settlement of collegiate education in Ireland which 
does not provide the Catholic students with Catholio instruction, 
as well as Catholic service and supervision. 
w * * 

Lest the casual reader should not have glanced at our 
introductory paragraphs, we may mention here again that the 
foregoing are the views regarding Trinity College and Catholic 
University Education, expressed by John O’Hagan in his 23th 
year, and consistently held and advocated by him till his death in 
his 68th year. It may be said that this article refers to years long 





122 The Irish Monthly. 


past. Whatever change has meanwhile taken place in the 
philosophical and religious spirit of the Institution has certainly 
not rendered it less perilous to Catholic youth. 

We had at first given to this paper a subtitle stating that it does 
not bring the question up to date. But let us bring it so far up 
to date as to refer to a meeting held in Wexford in support of the 
Catholic claim so late as the close of January in this year of Our 
Lord 1898. We refer to this meeting, not for the sake of the 
generous sentiments expressed by Lord Maurice Fitzgerald, but 
for the sake of a practical point developed excellently by one of 
the speakers, Mr. P. Hurley—namely, that the question of an 
Irish Catholic University is not the rich man’s question only, but 
the poor man’s question also and chiefly. By means of the prizes 
of the Intermediate Examinations, &c., a boy of a household of 
straitened means can help to support himself from his 1th to his 
18th year; and, if the facilities of higher education were then 
safely within his reach, a youth of talent might lawfully aspire 
to the most desirable prizes of life—as a certain Headmaster of 
Harrow urged his young hearers to a course of virtuous conduct 
which (he said) “may lead on to positions of considerable 
emolument, even in this world.” ‘The University Question in 
Ireland might in some aspects be made more practical by looking 
to Scottish and German ideals rather than to Trinity or Oxford 
or Cambridge. 


LART WORDS. 


6 H, lift me up ! ” she softly said, 
And answered was her dying prayer, 
But in a moment she was dead. 
“Oh, lift me up! ” she softly said; 
And lo! to God the words had sped 
That scarce had died upon the air: 
“ Oh, lift me up!” she softly said, 
And answered was her dying prayer. 


Joun Fitzpatrick, O.M.T 





( 193 ) 


DORA SIGERSON’S POEMS. 


An APPRECIATION. 


TI SHALL not soon forget the pleasure with which one evening 

a few years ago, I commenced the reading of a little volume 
which had reached me from the Editor of this Magazine with 
some brief words of commendation, or the mingled feelings with 
which I turned from page to page finding much that was charm- 
ing and impressive accompanied by much that was crude and 
inartistic. The book, modestly entitled ‘ Verses,” evidently was 
a work of a young poet who sang because she could not help 
singing, whose notes were natural and sweet, and who had a 
definite message to the heart, but whose voice was not under 
perfect control, and whose execution, therefore, lacked the perfect 
finish of art. Some of the pieces evidenced a thoughtful mind 
haunted by the questionings that trouble, sooner or later, every- 
one who looks beneath the surface of life and sees the sorrow and 
the darkness of the mysterious underflow ; but there was an utter 
absence of that all-pervading affectation of personal and con- 
stitutional misery which one has come to regard in this luxurious 
and prosperous age as part of the stock in trade of a minor poet. 
Miss Sigerson’s plaintive numbers might flow 


‘* For old, unhappy, far off things,”’ 


yet the outlook was, I had almost said, masculine, but, rather let 
me say, womanly and sympathetic, and the keynote, as compared 
with that of many of the shrill and shrieking imitators of Job’s 
wife around us, was that of resignation and hope. 

Still there was something wanting: the form not unfrequently 
was imperfeot, the singer had not learned that only a great poet 
can afford to be careless in detail, and that even he had better 
adhere to the simple laws of art. If a thought is noble it is 
entitled to the most noble form. I, therefore, put down the book 
with mingled feelings, pleasure that a new puet had arisen to 
swell the concert of Irish song, and regret that small and removable 
defects had been permitted to mar in any degree the general 
excellence of a volume remarkable in many respects, and certainly 
fall of unmistakable promise of better things to come. 


124 The Irish Monthly 


After one of those periods of silence when all the singers are 
hushed, and one begins to think that another penal code might 
not be an unmixed evil if only it would do what the gifted author 
of the “ Bards of the Gael and the Gall” says that of William 
and Anne did—cause ‘‘the whole island so blossom into musio 
and song,” there is now a burst of melody, and although the 
nightingale and the thrush and the blackbird do not join in, and 
Alice Meynell, and Rosa Mulholland, and Katherine Tynan do 
not swell the flood of song, it is spring again; and if the warbling 
is not of the loudest, it is clear and sweet, and is that of Arcady. 

So to-day I find upon my table another volume from the pen 
of Dora Sigerson (Mrs. Clement Shorter) and I open it in the 
expectation of finding in it the fulfilment of the earlier promise 
and am not disappointed, for “The Fairy Changeling and other 
Poems ” marks a striking and satisfactory development of the 
best characteristics of the former work. -Naturally there is a 
strong infusion of the Celtic spirit, that pathetic sadness which is 
solemn as the gloaming, and sweet as the May, and which in its 
impalpable tenderness seems to be related to 


é“ The deep unhappiness of winds, the light 
That comes on things we never more shall see.”’ 


What, for instance, could be finer than the weird “All Soul’s 
Hive :” 


é“ I closed the shutters tight, 
I feared the dawn of day, 
I stopped the busy clock 
' That timed your hours away. 


Loud howled my neighbour’s dog, 
O glad was I to hear: 

The dead are going by 
Now will you come, my dear, 


To take the chair by mine— 
Until the cock would crow— 

O, if it be you came 
And could not let me know! 

e - * 


We were too wide apart— 
You in your spirit-land— 

I knew not when you came, 
I could not understand.”’ 





Dora Sigerson a Poems. 125 


And how powerfully impressive is “ The Priest’s Brother,” which 
weird poem unfortunately the limits of this paper will not allow 
me to quote in full; and how pathetio is the unexpected ending 
after the delayed Mass ; 


“ é God rest you, brother,’ the good priest said 
‘ No years have passed—but a single night.’ 
He showed the body uncoffinéd, 

And the six wax candles all alight. 


“é The living flowers on the dead man’s breast 
Blew out a perfume sweet and strong, 

The spirit paused ere he passed to rest— 
‘God save your soul from a night so long.’ ”” 


Of equal strength is “The Ballad of MarjJoric ” perhaps the finest 
in the book, and so musical and rhythmical that it is difficult to 
refrain from singing some of the stanzas, as, for instance : 


‘* I cast my net into the tide 
Before I made for home ; 

Too heavy for my hands to raise, 
I drew it through the foam.”’’ 


And 
“ He said, ‘ Beware a woman's heat 
As you would shun the reef.’ 
‘ So let it break within my breast 
And perish of my grief.’ ’’ 

Or 


“ He raised his hands, a woman’s name 
Thrice bitterly he cried ; 

My net had parted with the strain— 
He vanished in the tide.”’ 


After a piece like this, so perfect in its chaste symmetry, I am 
somewhat impatient when here and there I come across a weak 
and faulty line, or an illustration of that quality which one of 
Dora Sigerson’s London critics has termed, not inaptly, “strange 
and deliberate ruggedness,’ and has made the phrase the text for a 
change against the Editor of THe Irtso Monruny of having 
encouraged the poet and her gifted compeers in their wilful dis- 
regard of the primary rules of their art. If, however, the 
conductor of the I. M. has not been sufficiently exacting in regard 
to the observance of stringent rules and formule of versification, 
others have been equally lenient, and among the number Mr. 


126 The Irish Monthly. 


Andrew Lang, who has not hesitated to pass such lines as 


é“ And there he questioned the old priest,’’ 
and 

“ When they said ‘ unholy is her grave, ”’ 
or 

é I'l] sleep well ’neath the still water.” 


which examples appear in the weird ballad our poet has con- 
tributed to a late number of Longman’s Magazine. 

In the volume before us such disfigurements are but few, but 
they are far too many ; for after all only the great composers can 
successfully deal with discords, and it is true to-day as it was in 
Alexander Pope’s time that 


‘* True ease in writing comes from art, not chance.”' 


If, however, in this regard Dora Sigerson’s work has a relation- 
ship to that of some other young Irish singers we might name, 
the cause may possibly be a fear on her part of over-refinement 
and a dread of the “‘ ten low words ” that often 


““ Creep in one dull line: 
While they ring round the same unvaried chimes 
With sure returns of still recurring rhymes:”’ 


Passing from this side of my subject, I do not fiud in either of 
the poet’s volumes much evidence that the singer is under the 
glamour of the pink and white glory of the summer orchard, or 
of the moonlit gold of the harvest fields. The blackbird and the 
thrush are not always carolling close by her in the dusky purple 
gloom of the woods, and nature has not many mysterious whispers 
for her interpretation, For all these things tn excelsis I must go 
to my shelf and take down Rosa Mulholland’s (Lady Gilbert’s) 
ever delightful Vagrant Verses to find amid the stately solemnity 
of its noble lines floods of summer colour and bursts of bird music ; 
or to Katherine Tynan’s Louise de la Valiiére, and the volume of 
Shamrocks which so soon followed it, to hear 


é“ In the orchard close 
The blackbird’s song, 
When the boughs are flushing faintly to rose, 
And April days are long, 
And the world in white with the hawthorn snows.”’ 





Dora Sigerson & Poems. 127 


But then 
é The small birds within the elm tree boughs 
Twitter and pipe and turn to sleep again.” 
and 
The low wind of daybreak in the corn 
Moves all the silken ears with languorous sighs ”’ 
and 


‘+ The drifted rose and snow of the apple blossom.’’ 


are all about us whenever Katherine Tynan sings in the “ grey 
Irish meadow.” 

These comparisons bring me to the view that Dora Sigerson is 
strongest in the quaint weird ballad, or in the poem which deals 
with the dread undercurrents of life; for, if she has not that 
ecstasy in colour and harmony, she has insight and intuition and 
a keen pictorial instinct, and whatever measure of fame she may 
attain to, she will, I think, owe fo work based upon the exercise 
of those gifts. I do not know if she will ever rise to the sublime 
height of Alice Meynell’s exquisite Regrets, or to that of Rosa 
Mulholland’s A Prayer, or to that of Katherine Tynan’s The 
Dead Christ ; for it is given to but few to reach the loftiest peak 
of Parnassus. One thing, however, is certain, she has not yet 
given us her best and sweetest, and she is capable of nobler work. 
A wider knowledge of humanity with its depths of hopeless misery 
and its entrancing joys, an increased power of self repression and 
of consequent close obedience to the laws of art, a firmer 
resolution not to be false in anyway however slightly to the sacred 
gift—these will come, and with them will come the spiritual 
vision, the clearer note, the enrapturing song. 

There is one poem in Dora Sigerson’s latest volume which 
fully illustrates anu justifies this opinion and these anticipations. 
Another poet has referred to it as one of those which are 
“unworthy of the rest”—a dictum which has filled me with 
astonishment and regret, for I am quite unable to understand how 
it was possible for any one with the soul of a poet to fail to 
recognise the almost Dantesque insight, the weird suggestiveness, 
and the rhythmical and pictorial beauty of such verses as these 
from The Suicide’s Grave, 





128 


or 


The Irish Monthly. 


é I'd choose<-should I do the act— such a night as this, 
When the sea throws up white arms for the wild winds kiss 


¢ ¢ e 


But he had chosen, they tell me, a dusk so fair 

One almost thought there were not such another—there. 
The air was full of the perfume of pines, and the sweet 
Sleepy chirp of birds—long the lush soft grass at his feet.”’ 


é“ What did you hear when you opened the doors of death ? 
Was it the sob of a thrush, or a slow sweet breath 

Of the perfumed air that blew through the doors with you 
That you fought so hard to regain the world you knew ? 


Or was it a woman's cry that shricking into the glaom, 

Like a hand that closed on your soul clutching it from its doom ? 

Was it a mother’s call, or the touch of a baby's kiss 

‘hat followed your desperate soul down the dark abyss? 
e - & 


What did you see as you stood on the other eide 
A strange shy soul among souls, 

“ * ee 
Or was it in death’s cold land there was no perfume 
Of the scented flowers, or lilt of a bird's gay tune, 
No sea there, or no cool of a wind’s fresh breath 
No woods, no plains, no dreams, and alas! no death ? 


Was there no life there that man’s brain could understand P 
No past, no future hopes to come in that strange land ? 

No human love, no sleep, no day, no night, 

But ever eternal living in eternal light,’’ 


With these passages from a fine poem I close the little volume, 


grateful as for the song of a bird in the early Spring. 


JAMES BowKER. 





( 129 ) 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 
CHAPTER V. 


THE RETURN OF CRSUS, 


Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious man 
Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow ! 
Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend ! 
And temper all, thou world-reviving sun, 


Into the perfect year ! 
THOMSON. 


'T'RE January snow-flakes had scaroely disappeared from the 

great lawn that lay before the west front of Ridingdale Hall 
when that Herald of the Spring, the snowdrop, came “ with his 
small white flag of truce to plead for his beleaguered brethren.” 
Bat February had by no means finished her course when the 
crocuses added their purple and gold to the big border of white 
that fringed three sides of the greensward. Then the Ridingdale 
boys began to be busy. To them, gardening was no child’s play. 
It was not a matter of tiny plots apportioned to each boy, but the 
serious undertaking of keeping in order, and in constant bloom, 
the broad borders that skirted the lawn. 

Hilary was head gardener, and Harry was second in com- 
mand. No hired hand was ever allowed to put spade or trowel 
into this sacred soil. It istrue that Billy Lethers was listened to 
when he made suggestions, and indeed the lads sometimes sought 
his advice. Our professional gossip often gave them more than 
advice. Many a bulb and cutting, and many a packet of seeds 
did Billy carry to his young friends at the Hall, and Hilary never 
made a new departure in his plans, or started a new horticultural 
scheme, without first consulting Mr. Lethers. 

The garden was, of set purpase, a “‘ careless ordered” one, and 
for the most part its flowers were of the hardy annual kind; yet 
its wealth and beauty were great inthe summer months when a 
belt of roses sprang into bloom, and a white and crimson cincture 
encircled the lawn, and all the atmosphere of that well-mown 
play-ground was sweet and fragrant with the breath of the Queen 
of Flowers. 

Vox. xxv. No. 297, 10 


130 The Irish Monthly. 


For years Hilary had laboured to make each month in its 
course yield great masses of its own particular blossom. March 
had now come with strong winds and sunless days, soon however 
to be succeeded by mild mornings and brilliant afternoons, with 
the opening of a million primroses and the blooming of count- 
less daffodils. . 

And as yet Mr. Kittleshot had not revisited Ridingdale 
Hall. 

é“ Restless man, Kittleshot,” the Colonel had said to the Squire 
a day or two after the play. “ Went to Mentone last night. 
Can’t get on at Hardlow somehow. Come back in the summer, 
probably.” 

No school in Europe was carried on with greater method or 
punctuality than that of Ridingdale Hall. Half holidays were 
given to games; odds and ends of play-time were devoted to 
gardening when the weather was fine, and to music if it was wet. 

On a certain afternoon in March, a half-holiday, rain fell 
heavily after the one o’clock dinner, and the boys were obliged to 
give up their game of football in the park. But at three o’clock 
the rain ceased, the sun shone, and the birds began a symphony 
which was nothing less than an invitation to the garden—an 
invitation which was immediately accepted by the lads of 
Ridingdale. Only Lancelot, the Squire’s fourth son, objected. 

“ What a jolly old nigger-driver you are, Hilary,” he said as 
the brothers began to put on their clogs. ‘‘ You think of nothing 
but slaving in that blessed garden.” 

Lance, not quite thirteen, was known as the sweet singer of 
Ridingdale. The boys had been practising a new mass, and 
Lance did not think that sufficient time had been given him for 
the perfecting of his solos. 

“Never mind, old fellow,” said Hilary soothingly. “I’ll give 
you a private practice to-morrow. Don’t you see how jolly soft 
and loose the soil will be after all that rain ?” 

‘‘'There’s something in that,” Lance answered, much mollified ; 
and in another moment he was racing bis next brother, George, 
across the wet lawn, and trying to be first at the tool-house. 

Besides Hilary, Harry, George, and Lance, two younger 
brothers—Alfred, aged eleven and a half, and Gareth, nearly 
ten—were in attendance, and the six boys were soon entirely 
occupied with spades, and rakes, and wheel-barrow. 





Doings in the Dale. . 131 


So busy were the lads that they did not hear the sounds of 
wheels on the gravel of the east front; but half-an-hour later 
they were astonished to see their father walking up and down the 
terrace that overlooked the lawn, with Mr. Kittleshot and the 
Colonel. 

é“ Hist !” whispered George to Hilary, “ here’s Croosus !”’ 

‘Bless us! He always comes when we are in a mess! ”— 
Hilary contemplated his muddy clogs and dirty hands somewhat 
ruefully. 

sé Well, considering this is only his second visit >” Harry 
began, but was interrupted by Lance’s exclamation of—“ They’re 
coming.” 

‘* No,” said George, “it’s only the Colonel. Hurrah!” 

"é Mudlarking as usual !” said the Colonel by way of greeting. 

‘‘Sorry we can’t shake hands, Colonel,” Hilary remarked. 
“ Fact is, there isn’t a clean paw amongst us.” 

é“ What d’ye say tu a little drill after tea? Missed one of our 
days this week.” (The Colonel drilled them twice a week 
regularly) ‘ My fault, of course.” 

** Just the very thing to straighten our backs!” exclaimed 
Lance. 

é Thank you very much, Colonel. The very thing. But what 
about Croo—Í mean Mr. Kittleshot ?’’—Hilary whispered. 

é He'll be moving presently, No matter, anyway. He’s in 
high feather, just now. Important news. Going to ke a neigh- 
bour of ours.” 

“é Oh, Colonel!’’ ejaculated Hilary, “you don’t mean to say 
he has bought Timington ?” 

“Fact. He met Rakespeare at Mentone, quite by accident. 
Timington now belongs to Mr. Kittleshot.”’ 

The six lads had clustered round the Colonel to hear this 
piece of interesting and somewhat exciting news. They scarcely 
knew whether to be glad or sorry. Mr. Rakespeare was only & 
name to them, but then, hitherto Mr. Kittleshot had been little 
more. 

“é Do you think, Colonel, that he'll come here often ?”’ Lance 
enquired with some anxiety. 

“é Possibly,”’ said the Colonel with a smile. “Why not, 
Lance ?”’ . 

““ Oh, nothing, of course; only— 





3? 


182 The Irish Monthly. 


é“ Afraid he'll spoil sport? I’ll take care he doesn’t do that.’ 

Yet the Colonel noticed that all the lads looked a trifle 
depressed. 

“é They’ve gone into tea,” the old soldier said looking round. 
é“ Suppose you knock off now—have a wash and brush up—then 
tea. After that a spell of drill— unless you are too tired.” 

But no boy would admit that he was in the least tired. 
Marching into the house, however, each looked as if the presence 
of a disturbing element was beginning to make itself felt in his 
bright young life. 


| 


Cuarrer VI. 


A CONFESSION. 


Whom call we gay? That honour has becn long 
The boast of mere pretenders to the name. 
The innocent are gay—the lark is gay ; 


The peagant, too, a wituess of his song, 
Himself a songster, is as gay as he. 
CowPgit. 


“What I really need is an entirely new interest.”’ 

As the Squire of Ridingdale listened to Mr. Kittleshot, the 
Colonel’s voice was distinctly heard shouting the word of command 
as he put the boys—their number now increased to nine—through | 
their customary drill. Perhaps the Squire was distracted by the 
noise outside, for though his manner was sympathetic he did not 
talk nearly so muchas Mr. Kittleshot wished him to do. 

The truth was that Mr. Kittleshot was making a confession, 
and expected to be helped in the process—a very novel one for the 
millionaire. He had begun by saying that he possessed every- 
- thing that a man could possibly need, and had immediately gone 
on to explain that he was the most unfortunate man on earth. 
The Squire felt much more sympathy than he expressed—for the 
simple reason that Mr. Kittleshot was trying to unburden himself 
without giving full expression to his own actual state of mind. 
And as the man of money spoke, the man of letters was translating 
the former’s language into plain speech. 

“You need not tell me that you are an unhappy man,’ the Squire 





Dotngs in the Dale. 133 


wasthinking ; “the fact is sufficiently clear. You discovered long ago 
that money would not buy happiness; but somehow, quite lately, 
the full force of this big truth has been brought home to you with 
a directness you cannot ignore. You want my help, and if I can 
offer it without compromising myself, without giving you the 
impression that I am glad to be hand-in-glove with a millionaire, 
and without making overtures of friendship that I do not feel, 
and am never likely to feel, well—you shall have it,” 

“Tam getting on in years now, Mr. Ridingdale,” the rich’ 
man continued, “though I am not so old asI look; but every 
year I feel more lonely and more isolated. Great people cultivate - 
me, of course; but I am perfectly aware that they have no real 
feeling of friendship for me. I have been useful to many here 
and there, and they repay me with the only coin at their command 
—introductions and entertainments during the season, and after- 
wards invitations to country houses. If these had come thirty 
years ago, they would at any rate have given me some slight 
satisfaction ; now they are only a troubleto me. To get a loan 
from me, or a subscription, both men and women are ready to 
latter and befool me, and the knowledge of this, Mr. r. Ridingdale, 
makes my life unsupportably bitter.” 

“ Stand-at-ease !”’ 

The Colonel’s voice of thunder sounded in the pause of Mr 
Kittleshot’s confession, and to hide a smile the Squire rose to give . 
his wood firea vigorous poking. 

“Well, Mr. Kittleshot, you will have great opportunities at 
Timington,”’ said the Squire, reseating himself. ‘ The little 
village has been neglected for years. You are now its owner and 
master—for I take it you have acquired with the Hall, the whole 
of the land and most of the houses Timington contains.” 

Mr. Kittleshot assented. 

“ Your son is in the next village, and—— 

“ Pardon me—my son is an excellent man of business, but I 
fear he will make but an indifferent neighbour. Indeed, I am not 
at all sure that he will approve of the purchase. At present he 
knows nothing of what I have done.” 

“ Attention !’’ 

The Colonel’s voice was particularly penetrating this after- 
noon, The Squire was beginning to feel that complete attention 
was what he could not give to Mr. Kittleshot under present 
circumstances. 


72? 





184 The Irish Monthly. 


é OÉ course,” the rich man continued, feeling perhaps that he 
had shown his hand rather clumsily—“ of course my son and I are 
on the best possible terms. It is not to be expected that father 
and son should see alike on every subject, and I admit that we 
have our points of difference. But what I mean is that—well, 
to be quite candid, my lad is somewhat self-contained and 
always greatly absorbed in his daily work. Besides, he is married 
as you know, and has a small family, and—in short my interests 
are not always his.” 

The Squire guessed that Mr. Kittleshot had not been “ quite 
candid.” 

“T know exactly what you wanted to say ’”’—Ridingdale 
thought to himself—“ and I am perfectly well aware that you 
have not said it. You wish meto say it for you, but that I cannot 
do. What is in your mind is something like this—‘ I ama sad 
and lonely old man and wants a friend very badly; will you be 
that friend?’ Now that is a question I may not at present 
answer. In the meantime I will do what I can for you, just as I 
would for any other man who sought my help or advice.” 

“I know that you and I are comparative strangers, and that 
it is not usual under such circumstances to exchange confidences 
‘gently, my friend,” thought Ridingdale, “we have not quite 
done that, you know.’’| but we have now a certain interest in 
common—a stake in the country, and, at any rate, a position in 
ths county, and it seems to me that there are many matters in 
which you might advise me.” 

The Squire expressed himself in polite and conventional 
language, but immediately added— 

“Our positions in the county, Mr. Kittleshot, differ— I 
suppose about as much as the position of a landowner and that of 
8 mere agent could differ. I am only the latter, as you are aware. 
Of course I am a magistrate, and I have no doubt that your owm 
name will soon be on the commission ; otherwise we have, I think, 
very little in common.” 

The Squire never called himself a yoor man. He felt always 
that the fact was sufficiently well known. Nor would he in the 
present instance flatter Mr. Kittleshot by calling hima rich man. 

The millionaire looked keenly at his host. It was patent that 
the Squire of Ridingdale was anything but anxious for the friend@l— 
“hip of a rich, and therefore a powerful man. This phase of 





Doings in the Dale. 135 


character was not at all what Mr. 'Kittleshot was used to, yet his 
present knowledge of the man before him prevented anything 
like surprise, and repressed whatever feeling of annoyance might 
otherwise have lodged in his mind. 

“ Dismiss !” 

The Colonel’s final word had the effect of forcing Mr. Kittleshot 
from his chair. 

“ At any rate, I hope soon to welcome you to Timington.”— 
The smile of *‘ Croesus ” as he said this was a peculiar one. 

‘- It will give me great pleasure to—to call,” was the Squire’s 
response. It seemed to him that Mr. Kittleshot winced at the 
word “ oall,”’ but all the latter said was— 

‘‘T have kept you too long; I know you area busy man. 
There was a time when I might have said the same of myself.” 

Mr. Ridingdale did not press his visitor toremain. The Post 
and the press wait for no man, and the Squire had unfinished 
matter for both; but ashe conducted Mr. Kittleshot to the door— 
so much deference at least he would show the old gentleman—he 
began to wonder if his manner had been a trifle too cold. Stand- 
ing at the Hall door in the early March twilight the millionaire 
looked haggard and careworn. The Squire noticed this 
with a feeling of genuine pity. “ You will always be very 
welcome here ”—were the words that rose to his lips; but he 
substituted— It ig, scarcely likely that I can ever be of use to 
vou, but you may rely upon me if ever —— ” 

Mr, Kittleshot did not allow him to finish the sentence. 

é My dear sir!” he. exclaimed with something a little like 
emotion, “ you can do much for me if—if you will.” 

Their leave-taking was interrupted by the Colonel. Mr. 
Kittleshot had his son’s carriage in waiting. 

** Told you I wasn’t going back, didn’t I? Ah, that’s right. 
See you to-morrow. Ta-ta!” 

The Squire looked grave as the carriage rolled away. 

sé What’s the matter, Ridingdale ?” the Colonel asked. 

é“ Ihardly know. Thereis a vague sort of fear in my mind— 
fear of—I don’t know what. All nonsense, of course; but I feel as 
though the peace and happiness of my home were threatened.” 

“é Nonsense, man. Kittleshot’s the most harmless old buffer 
going. Wants to be friendly and that sort of thing—doesn’t 

he? Old boy’s rather lonely, youknow. Just why I took him up.” 


136 The Irish Monthly. 


“ But it’s such a truly awful thing, that man’s wealth. The 
very thought of it, coupled with the sight of the poor fellow s face, 
makes one shiver. It is the constant revolution, ‘stale 

And tasteless, of the same repeated joys, 
That palls and satiates, and makes languid life 
A pedlar’s pack, that bows the bearer down. 
Health suffers, and the spirits ebb, the heart 
Recoils from its own choice—at the full feast 
Is famished—finds no music in the song, 

! No smartness in the jest ; and wonders why.’ 

é There, there !” laughed the Colonel, “ that’s enough for one 
day. If you quote that chap again, I go home. Bless my soul! 
Kittleshot can’t help his wealth. ’Tisn’t his fault, y’ know. And 
anyhow it’s not criminal to be rich. Always provided the riches 
were honestly gotten.”’ 

“And no one doubts Kittleshot’s honesty,”’ said the Squire 
warmly. | 

“Of course not. Then what's the row ?” 

The Squire smiled and shook his head. He could not quite 
shake off a certain fear of coming trouble, but he was determined 
not to meet it half way. 

é I must prepare for the Post,” he said looking at his watch. 
“ Would you mind looking into the school-room from time to time? 
Mrs. Ridingdale will be at home soon, and I know she expects 
you to stay to dinner. But just seo that those lads are working, 
will you P” 

é Trust me to keep their noses to the grindstone,” said the 
Colonel gaily. 


Cuarrer VII. 


THE SEQUEL OF A SCENE. 


What folly can be ranker? Like our shadows, 
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines. y 
OUNG. 


Mr. Kittleshot was not afraid of his son, but there were 
reasons why he had made a comparative stranger the first recipient 
of the news of his purchase of Timington. 

Dinner at Hardlow Hall was always an elaborate meal, and as 
a rule it was as dull as a dinner could well be. 

Mr. Kittleshot, junior, generally had a look of pre-occupation., 








Doings tn the Dale. 137 


and his wife occupied herself in alternately petting and scolding 
her two growing lads. Such an atmosphere was peculiarly dis- 
tasteful to old Mr. Kittleshot. He paid visits in order to benefit 
by the change, to be entertained and taken out of himself; but 
at Hardlow, although his son was always ready to discuss matters of 
business, and his son’s wife was always eloquent on the subject of 
her domestic troubles, Mr. Kittleshot often found himself the 
liveliest member of the party. 

Hardlow Hall was very large and very gorgeous, and in these 
points it reminded old Mr. Kittleshot, almost painfully, of his own 
great Lancashire palace. Everything it contained seemed to have 
the faculty of proclaiming its newness as well as its costliness. 
Wardour-street had done its best for Hardlow, and yet there was 
a palpable absence of low tones and warm shades, of antique 
grandeur and mellowed splendour, of stateliness and dignity com- 
bined with comfort. 

The neighbourhood Mr. Kittleshot had always liked, and, as 
we know, he had long cast an admiring eye upon the old Hall at 
Timington. His own great business in Lancashire he had disposed 
of before his wife’s death, and although he held the principal 
share in the Hardlow factory he was quite content that the entire 
management of this thriving concern should remain in the hands 
of his son. But for some reason or other, Mr. Kittleshot, junior, 
had never approved of his father’s attempt to acquire Timington. 
It may have been that the younger man did not wish his own 
splendour to be overshadowed by that of his father. 

On the night of his return from Ridingdale Hall, Mr. 
Kittleshot reflected that if he did not acquaint his son of the 
buying of this new property the news would soon reach Hardlow 
from another quarter. He had made no secret of the matter in 
his talk with the Colonel and Ridingdale, and under any circum- 
stances the transfer of the estate would in a few hours be public 
news. 

Mr. Kittleshot’s first thought was to wait until he and his son 
went to the smoking-room; but to-night the dinner seemed to 
drag more than usual, and he resolved to unburden himself at 
the very first opportunity—which was not long in coming. 

“ Did you drive into Ridingdale to-day ?” his son asked with 
a slight yawn. 

“ Yes. In fact I paid a visit to the Hall.” 


138 The Irwh Monthly. 


Mr. Kittleshot, junior, pulled a wry face. 

‘ You seem inclined to cultivate that poor beggar,” he said. 

é“ I shall do so if he will permit me,” the older man said 
quietly. 

“Permit you! Good heavens, 'dad; what are you talking 
about?” 

The young man laughed long and ironically. 

“Have you ever tried to cultivate the Ridingdales ?”’—the 
father asked, a peculiar smile and tone giving the words a strange 
em phasis. 

é“ Not I, indeed. What advantage is it to know a penniless 
fool like Ridingdale ?” 

‘Tsay, grandpa! ” exclaimed the elder boy, Bertie, “ did you see 
all those little cads in clogs? Just you know like the lads that 
work in our factory.”’ 

“ Most raffish beggars I ever clapped eyes o on,” Horaoe, the 
younger boy, put in. “I met two of ’em at Rippell’s shop the other 
day. Such fun! Went up to one of ’em, and asked him if he’d 
be kind enough to give me the name of his bootmaker. Ha, ha! 
You should have seen the young beggar blush !” 

It was well that Mrs. Kittleshot interposed at this point, for 
‘‘ grandpa” had half risen from his chair with the evident intention 
of boxing his grandson’s ears. 

“ O, Horace, dear, that was tooshockingly rude! How could 
you act in such an ungentlemanly manner! Don’t you see how 
very awkward I shall feel in meeting Mrs. Ridingdale? How 
could you be so thoughtlessly naughty ? I certainly think you 
ought to apologise when you see the boy again.” 

“ Tf he does not, I shall!’’ exclaimed Mr. Kittleshot in great 
heat. 

The two spoiled boys were a little frightened. They had 
often annoyed their grandfather, but never before had they seen 
him so seriously angry. 

“ Aren’t you making a little too much of the business?” asked 
Kittleshot, junior. “ You know what thoughtless creatures boys 
are.” 

“ [ can understand a boy being thoughtless, and Í am not sur- 
prised to find an absence of fine feeling in young folks; but that 
a grandson of mine should boast of such consummate vulgarity as 
this is more than I can stand.” 





Dotngs in the Dale. 139 


Mrs. Kittleshot rose at this point, motioning her sons to follow. 
They did so very unwillingly for their dessert was almost 
untouched. 

A great silence fell upon father and son, a silence that lasted 


for some time. It was broken at length by the former. 

“You know, I suppose, that I have always longed to buy 
Timington.”’ 

é Yes.” 

“ Well, I have bought it. And I am going to live in it.” 

é You astonish me, father.” 

Mr. Kittleshot, Junior, looked less astonished than he felt. 

é I shall probably sell Rinwold [his Lancashire estate] and 
take up my abode here permanently. I shall travel from time to 
time, of course.”’ 

“ Oh, of course.” 

‘‘ It is more probable, however, that I shall settle down and 
travel—well, very little.” 

Mr. Kittleshot, senior, was speaking calmly enough, but the 
recent scene had given him a certain courage. 

é I suppose, father, you are aware that the Timington pro- 
perty is a very poor one, and that the house has suffered through 
neglect ?” 

é You can tell me nothing about Timington that I do not 
know.” 

The younger man poured out a glass of wine. 

é I have deliberated on this matter for some time,” the father 
proceeded, very quietly, “ and I have reason to believe that I shall 
be happy in this neighbourhood. I hope to gain friends here.” 

é The Ridingdales?”—The question was asked with some- 
thing of a sneer. 

"é I have not said so; but perhapsthe name of Ridingdale had 
better not be mentioned between us for some time to come.” 

é I am quite agreeable, father.”’ 

é I am very seriously annoyed by what I have heard from your 
son’s lips to-night.”’ 

é You are making too much of a boyish freak.” 

é Ido not think so. It isquite true that we are not gentle- 
men by reason of an ancient descent, but I see no reason why, 
holding the position we do, we should not claim the title by reason 
of our good manners. We have education, of a kind. This was 








140 The Irish Monthly. 


paid for—pretty heavily, too. There is no necessary connection 
between education and good manners, that is clear enough; yet 
surely the latter can be acquired.” 

The younger man sipped his port in silence. 

é“ The truth is, Fred,” ”—Mr. Kittleshot raised his voice a little 
at this point— I am thorougly ashamed of those two lads. And 
I make bold to say you are not doing your duty by them as a 
father. Where would you find the sons of a gentleman,”’—he 
laid great emphasis upon this word—‘ boys in their early teens 
going about the world with all the jewellery your lads display ? 
What father would allow such youngsters to drink the quantity of 
champagne those lads have swallowed this evening ? What man 
of sense would by way of pocket-money deal out bank notes where 
the average boy of rich parents gets a half-sovereign, and 
sovereigns where many a lad with a title gets only shillings? 
What English country gentleman would allow his sons as many 
suits of fashionably cut clothes as Beau Brummel, and as many 
patent-leather shoes and walking sticks as a London masher? 
Don’t you see that the lads are pale and podgy from over-eating 
and from lack of healthy exercise, and stupid and eilly from 
drinking more than would be good for a grown man? And what 
of their education? Ask their tutors and professors, or rather— 
for these poor fellows will not give you true answers—examine 
them yourself and test their progress. You are able to do it. 
And if you have servants who are possessed of honesty of speech, 
ask them what they think of your curled and perfumed darlings. 
I tell you, Fred, that your boys are a by-word in this village, and 
that before long they will be something more. I cannot shut my 
eyes and close my ears when I come to visit you. You are 
devoted to your business, I know, and up to a certain point that 
is ag it should be; but do not forget that you are a father.” 

Mr. Kittleshot, junior, had turned very pale. And if he was 
still silent, his silence was that of a man who knows not what to 
gay. 

DAvip BEARNE, 8.7. 


(To be continued). 





( 141 ) 


FRANOESCA ROMANA. 
A LxeGenp or Rome. 


T= giddy, laughing Roman throng, 
Joy’s pennons bearing wide unfurl’d, 
Beneath her windows all day long 
Went singing through the world. 


“Oh come with us,” they gaily cried, 

‘¢ For thou art young, and thou art fair,” 

From life’s bright lures she turned aside, 
She knelt in silent prayer. 


But when she hears her husband call, 

She riseth up, with eager care ; 

Like God’s own voice his voice doth fall 
Across her silent prayer. 


His words she heeds, his wish fulfils, 

With smiling and unclouded face, 

And when all things are as he wills 
She goes back to her place. 


And then with reverent soul, and calm, 

She kneeleth down to pray once more, 

And reads again the self-same psalm 
She had begun before. 


Four times her husband calls—and she 
Four times her fervent prayer forsaketh ; 
An angel could no prompter be, 

When God’s commands he taketh, 


Again at last, all duty done, 
She to her prayer in peace returneth, 
And lo!—the page, five times begun, 
With golden letters burneth. 
FRANK PENTRILL. 


* The feast of St. Frances of Rome is kept on the ninth day of this month 


( 142 ) 


THE THREE JOSEPHS. 


ARCH isthe month of St. Joseph. In this special attribution 

of certain months to certain devotions St. Joseph's claim to 

March seems to be more generally recognized than any other dedi- 

cation of the sort, except of course the month of May and of Mary. 

Let this be our excuse (if excuse be needed) for paying now a little 

act of homage to the universal patron of the universal Church; 

and let our March tribute take the form of a brief discussion 
of certain points of resemblance between the three Josephs. 

Who are these three Josephs ? Who are the two Josephs whom 
we honour by associating them with the Spouse of the Blessed 
Virgin Mary? There are three namesakes of St. Joseph mentioned 
in the genealogy of our Divine Redeemer which is given.in the 
third chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel : Joseph the son of Mathathias ; 
and then, further back in the past Joseph son of Juda; and 
thirdly, much nearer to Abraham or rather to Adam (for this 
retrograde genealogy reaches jim) we have Joseph, not the son but 
the father of another Judas. Of these three. Josephs, however, no 
facts are known that could be made the subject of a comparison 
between them and the foster-father of ‘our Lord. Joseph the 
Patriarch was not one of those three, for of the twelve sons of 
Jacob, not Joseph but Judas is named in St. Matthew’s genealogy 
of our Lord. Jllow often, by the way, that ill-omened name of the 
Traitor figures among the human ancestors of Jesus ! 

The first, then, of the namesakes and prototypes of our great 
St. Joseph is Joseph son of Jacob, of whom it is written in the 
37th chapter of Genesis: ‘‘ Now Israel loved Joseph above all his 
sons because he had him in his old age;” and of whom, too, it is 
written in the 30th chapter: “The Lord also, remembering 
Rachel, heard her, and she bore a son, saying: ‘God hath taken 
away my reproach ;’ and she called his name Joseph. ” 

It is true, indeed, that the brother of Benjamin is atype of 
our Divine Redeemer Himself, who was also hated by His 
brethren and was sold by them to lis enemies, yet forgave them 
and saved them from destruction. Butin one striking particular 
the two Josephs, who both were exiled into Egypt, resemble one 
another. Between the wicked wife of Putiphar and the 





The Three Josephs. ., 143 


Immaculate Virgin Mary there is not resemblance but utter con- 
trast; while the holy men to whom they were respectively 
entrusted are alike in the fidelity with which they fulfilled their 
trust. 

Many other things that are narrated about the first Joseph are 
verified likewise in the last of the Hebrew Patriarchs and first 
of the Christian Saints. The King of Heaven has said to him, as 
Pharaoh said to Joseph: “ Thou shalt be over my house” 
(Gen xli, 40); and spiritual writers are fond of imagining that 
God bids us have recourse to the patronage of the Spouse of Mary 
by saying to us, as the King of Egypt said to his people: Ite ad 
Joseph—* Go to Joseph.” 

The other Joseph that deserves to be linked with him who has 
made the name so dear to us is associated, not with the beginning, 
but with the ending, of our Lord’s mortal life on earth. He is 
first mentioned in St. Matthew’s Gospel towards the end of the 
last chapter but one, and immediately after another Joseph who is 
named only in this place. After the Centurion and others who 
had seen Jesus die, had made their reluctant and faltering act of 
faith, “This indeed eas the Son of God !’’—we are reminded again 
of the more courageous faith proved by the women who had 
followed Jesus from Galilee, and who followed Him to Calvary, 
“ among whom (we are told) was Mary Magdalen, and Mary the 
mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of 
Zebedee.” | 

This last was Salome, and the sons of Salome and Zebedee 
were St. John the Evangelist and St. James the Greater ; whereas 
St. James the Less, the first bishop of Jerusalem, whose Epistle 
makes him the Apostle of Extreme Unction, had for his brother 
this other unknown Joseph, very dear, we may believe, to our 
Lord, of whom he was so close a kinsman that according to the 
Hebrew way of speaking he was called the brother of Jesus. 

After this mere naming of the Joseph who in God’s wisdom 
was left out of the plan of the Apostolic College, not called with 
his brother James, as the other James was called with his brother 
John and as Andrew was called with Ais brother Peter—after this 
passing reference to the least known of the namesakes of our great 
saint for whose sake we have named him, St. Joseph of Arimathea 
comes on the scene, and plays so prominent a part there that in the 
-ixty most devout and pathetic pages which Father Gallwey in 





144 The Irish Monthly. 


his Watches of the Passion devotes to the “ Taking down from the 
Cross ” Joseph’s name is printed ninety-four times. No one can 
read that holiest part of a very holy and beautiful book without 
beginning to feel a special devotion to this St. Joseph, gratitude 
towards him, confidence in him, as a leader even among the saints 
of Calvary. A man of wealth, a man of high social standing, 
he dares, in that supreme moment when all are scared, to risk 
everything, and he goes boldly—audacter, as St. Mark says— 
with a generous audacity, he goes to the Roman Governor to ask 
for the Body of Jesus. He gains his object; the Sacred Body now 
belongs to Joseph and is safe. 

We are thinking of St. Joseph of Arimathea, not for his own 
sake but as representing in a certain sense the Foster-father of 
Jesus. Joseph’s death of peace and honour had taken place before 
Christ’s death of bitterness and shame; but what would have 
been his office here is confided to another who bears his name. 
To him, too, the body of Jesus had belonged. It had been his 
privilege to protect and nourish the child Jesus while He lay in 
His Mother’s arms; and now that He lies (but lifeless) in His 
Mother’s arms again, it is the privilege of another Joseph to 
guard Hie sacred body and provide a resting place for it. 

Another point of similarity between the beginning and the 
ending of our Saviour’s life on earth is the relation of type and 
figure that may be discovered between the Immaculate Womb 
wherein He lay at first, and then at the last the new sepulchre 
hewn out of the rock in which no man had yet been laid. With — 
His last earthly dwelling St. Joseph of Arimathea provided Him. 
It was His last alms. | 

There is another link between Joseph of Nazareth and Joseph 
of Calvary. Like another Joseph of whom we know nothing more— 
Joseph Barsabas, surnamed the J ust, to whom Matthias waspreferred © 
to fill the place in the apostolic ranks left vacant by the treason of | 
Judas—itis expressly stated of each of the two saints who presided 
respectively over the birth and over the burial of Jesus, “ Joseph 
was & just man.” Now, as the Son of Man is just in a transcendent 
sense and as it “behoves Him to fulfil all justice,” what must be | 
His recompense for the services He has deigned to accept at either 
extremity of His earthly career from these two glorious saints 
bearing the same beloved and oft repeated name ? 

But every type and figure and symbol falls short of the 





To S. M.S. 145 


pathetic realities of the Divine Infancy. No saint, except the 
Queen of Saints, has been allowed to approach so near to our 
Incarnate God, as the one great St. Joseph whose name has made 
us think of other Josephs. He indeed it is whom the King of 
Heaven has placed over His household. He indeed it isof whom 
the King of Heaven says to His people, Ite ad Joseph. He indeed 
it is who kept guard over the Immaculate Mother and the Divine 
Child. “ Whom God has joined let no one sunder:’’ but let us 
in our hearts and in our prayers join together Jesus, Mary, and 
Joseph. Let us beg of St. Joseph to plead for us with his Immacu- 
late Spouse; and let us beg of her to plead for us with her Son. 
“And the King said to her: What wilt thou, Queen Esther P 
What is thy request? If thou shouldst even ask one half of my 
kingdom, it shall be given to thee.” Shecraves now a smaller boon— 
only one poor heart, and this not for herself—but for Him her Son, 
May it be given to her prayers that He may reign for ever in this 
poor human soul that wishes and prays to live and to die in His 
faith, in His fear, in His grace, and in His love. 
M. R. 


TO 8. M. 8. 
After reading her “ Songs of Sion.” 


NEVER knew thee, child ; but this I knew 
Thou camest from starred spaces to this world 
With all thy spirit faculties unfurled ; 
And thy great sponsor, Music, promptly drew 
From his vast repertory, faultless and true, 
Thy welome from thy father's lips—our poet herald 
Of May, and May’s pink blossoms, lightly curled 
To hold the chaliced sweetness of the dew. 


And thou, the heiress of his wealth of song, 

Lavished thy gold in streams of liquid light 

Doubly refined by all thy faith and love. 

And lest thou shouldst cheat the great expectant throng 
Of even one slender note—one music mite,— 
Singing thou soarest to the choirs above. PAS 


Vor. xxvi. No. 297. 11 





( 146 ) 


OUR LADY OF THE WAYSIDE. 


Rome is the great centre, the meeting-place of all Catholic 
hearts, the fountain-head of all devotions, as it is the home 
of the Vicar of Christ. All those who have journeyed thither and 
had the happiness of praying by the tomb of the first Pope, St. 
Peter, and of kneeling at the feet of his latest representative 
Leo XIII., do not leave the Eternal City, without visting, if 
possible, the Gest, one of the most celebrated of the Roman 
Churches, where for more than three centuries the sons of Saint 
Ignatius have kept watch and ward over the relics of their great 
Founder. True Catholics will not let themselves be long detained 
by the bewildering splendour of the gorgeous decorations, by the 
beautiful ceiling with its profusion of frescoes and gilding, but 
will hasten to kneel at the altar cf Saint Ignatius—that wonder- 
ful altar, surrounded with the must magnificent bronze candelabra, 
and decorated with the richest lapislazuli in*the world. Above 
hangs a large picture of the Saint, but on festivals this is moved 
back and discloses a iife-size statue of Saint Ignatius, clothed in 
cloth of silver and resplendent with jewels. This altar is just below 
the chapel of the Madonna della Strada, or Our Lady of the Way- 
side, and it is meet and fitting that Ae who so loved Our Blessed 
Lady should find his last resting-place at her feet. Indeed the 
Madonna della Strada might also be called the Madonna of Saint | 
Ignatius, as it is one of the most precious possessions of his 
children. 
The origins of this holy picture are lost in the mist of ages - 
but that it is of great antiquity, there can be no doubt. It is 
painted on a portion of an ancient wall, the composition and 
cement of which point clearly to its being the remains of some 
ancient Roman edifice, and it is fo this it owes its name, havim gc 
been, doubtless, at first placed in a street under one of the little 
niches like those still to be so frequently seen in most towns of 
Italy ; for,strada or strata means “ street” or “way.” Owing ta 
the veneration in which it was held, it must then have been tak em 
from the wall and placed in a church. The painting itself is 
distinctly of the Roman or Latin school, not of the Greek, and i 
ia eenerally attributed to the fifth century. The Divine Chila 








- 


Our Lady of the Wayside. 147 


held in His Mother’s arms, has the right hand raised in the act of 
giving the Roman blessing, and there is nothing of the manner 
and stiffness of the Greek School. There are but few such ancient 
pictures in existence. It is not known when a church was first 
built to receive it; but the church from which it was removed to 
its present home was always associated with the Astalli family, 
and was probably built by them. It is enough to know that this 
Madonna was always held in great esteem and veneration by the 
Roman people ; and we will pass on to more modern times. When 
Saint Ignatius was in Rome, at the beginning of the foundation 
of the Society, he would often come and say Mass before the holy 
picture, and soon became so attached to it, that he longed to 
possegs it in order to place it in the firet church which should be 
built by the Jesuits. He went to ask permission for this to the 
parish priest, Don Codacio, who at first energetically refused him. 
but suddenly moved by the grace of God, he not only withdrew 
his refusal and granted the picture to Saint Ignatius, but desired 
to give himself also to the Society of Jesus. This he did, and 
the church, with the consent of Pope Paul III., and the 
approbation of the Astalli family, was given over to Saint 
Ignatius and the parochial cure transferred to Saint Mark’s. Thus 
did the Madonna della Strada elect to dwell among those who 
bear the name of her Divine Son; and this the first church of the 
Society, was called by His name, the Gest. And what more 
natural than this choice, when we remember those who were 


destined to kneel before this shrine ? As we ourselves pray there, 


the thoughts with which perhaps we entered give place to others; 
we are no longer haunted by the beauties of the Forum, and the 
splendid ruins of pagan Rome, the memory of the old Romans 
‘ades away, and other warriors take their place, fighting in a far 
different cause. Before our closed eyes passes a long procession 
of those who in the days gone. by loved with a great love Our 
Lady and her Divine Son, and who often came here to kneel at 
her feet. First is Saint Ignatius, then the great Apostle, Saint 
Francis Xavier, with his crown of twelve hundred thousand 
coverted souls, Blessed Peter Faber, and Saints Aloysius, 
Stanislaus Kostka, John Berchmans, so dear to the Blessed 
Virgin’s heart. Here also came Saint Philip Neri, Saint Charles 
Borromeo, Saint Francis of Sales and many others, It is indeed 
holy ground on which we tread, and the very walls seem to echo 


148 The Irish Monthly. 


with the words of the Introit from the Mass of the Madonna della 
Strada: “ Beati immaculati in via, qui ambulant in lege Domini.” 
Putting aside our sordid cares and petty ambitions, we, too, 
fervently ask grace to keep to the narrow way which leads to the 
greatness of heaven. It is here, chiefly, on the Feasts of the 
Purification and Assumption that the young Jesuits solemnly 
‘pronounce before the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar and 
in the hands of the Father General, the vows of poverty, chastity, 
and obedience, adding the fourth vow of going forth to the farthest 
Missions on the least sign from the Vicar of Christ. How well 
this vow has been, and is still, kept, may be seen in the annals of 
these missions. How many have left here to reap the crown of 
martyrdom ; many others to toil for long years far away from all 
civilisation, at last laying down their life out of reach of any 
human aid, but happy in their work faithfully accomplished. 
The memory of the chapel of the Madonna della Strada has gone 
with them into the wilds of Africa or Asia, and has ever been 
their help and comfort in their torments. 

The church of the Gesi, as it now stands, was begun by Saint 
Francis Borgia, the third General of the Order. Seeing the ever 
increasing crowds that flocked to the shrine,.he wished to raise a 
larger edifice, but funds were lacking. Cardinal Alexander 
Farnese came to his aid, and through his munificence the splendid 
building began to rise from the ground in 1568, and took sixteen 
years to build. The Holy Picture was placed in its new chapel in 
1575, the older church being destroyed. 

Of the royal splendour of this little chapel a word must be said. , 
It is resplendent with the marbles of the old Roman days, and 
pillars of “‘giallo antico,” “corallina,” and “porta santa,” while the 
walls and pavement itself are inlaid with the same precious stones ; 
the latter being, as it were, strewn with bronze stars. The chapel 
is entered through a little porch, and is of small sise. The dim 
and uncertain light makes it difficult to distinguish clearly the 
details, but on the walls there are four pictures, which on great 
days being removed, disclose niches in which are placed reliquaries 
filled with the bones of the Saints and Martyrs. The holy picture 
itself is over the Altar surrounded by gilt angels. Between the 
painting and the crystal are placed some wonderful jewels which 
sparkle and glitter in the light of the many lamps and candles. 

Below is a small tabernacle with a picture of Saint Joseph who has 





Our Lady of the Wayside. 149 


his eyes uplifted to the Madonna above. Inside this tabernacle 
is kept a relic of a garment worn by Our Blessed Lady. The 
picture was one of the first of the Madonnas-to be crowned, this 
ceremony being instituted in 1636 and the coronation taking place 
two years Jater. This crown, with numerous other valuable ex- 
votos, was stolen by sacriligeous hands at the stormy close of the 
eighteenth century. By permission of the Pope, a new coronation 
took place with unparalleled splendour in 1885. The ex-votos are 


so numerous, that, by permission, they have already once been 
melted down into other ornaments for the chapel. These offerings 


still continue, and the graces which have been obtained at the 
shrine would want a book to themselves. Children have been 
cured of blindness, the sick healed, monetary help obtained 
through the intercession of the Madonna dela Strada. At no 
time of the day-is the chapel empty. There may be found many 
on their knees seeking for help and assistance in their trouble ; 
many others who could repeat with the heaven-seeking poet, 
Dante (Patadiso, Canto 33). 


La tua benignita non pur soccorre 
A chi dimanda, ma molte fiate 
Liberamente al dimandar precorre. 
In te misericordia, in te pietate. 


i Thy bounty succoureth not him alone 
Who asks for it, but oftentimes is known 
Freely to come ere the demand hath flown. 
In thee all mercy, clemency we find.” 


To those who have visited this shrine, the moments passed 
there will be for ever among the sweetest recollections of life. 
But it is not only in Rome that the Madonna della Strada is to be 
found ; replicas of the miraculous picture may now be seen in 
many churches of England, France, and Germany ; and altars 
have been raised in imitation of the Chapel of Gesu, as quite 
recently in the Church of St. Francis Xavier, Upper Gardiner 
Street, Dublin. This devotion has thus been made known to 
many to comfort them in life’s pilgrimage; in their troubles 
they invoke Our Lady of the Wayside who ever reminds them of 
the long way of Calvary trod by her Divine Son for love of them, 
until, in thinking on His sufferings, they learn to forget their 


own. 
Eva BILLINGTON 








( 160 ) 


A PROLOGUE TO “ALADDIN” 
Spoken at a School Performance. 


“IS plain to see—wbhat Shakspere’s thoughtful page 
Need scarce have taught us—‘‘ All the world’s a stage,” 

And all the men and women players be 

In a strange web. of farce and tragedy. 

What varied roles there are, what falls and rises, 

Exits and entrances, and strange disguises ! 

Some wield a sword, while some talk others down; 

One is quite willing to amuse as clown, 

And one must grasp at every pasteboard crown. 

So curious the drama life can show, 

Why does the eager multitude still flow 

To thrill at mimic joys, unreal woe ? 

Why to the boards, where painted passions rage, 

Turn from the [ruth’s more vast and vivid stage ? 

Why wields the Theatre from land to land 

That potent witchery so few withstand ? 


So, I am told, philosophers have asked, 
And left the mystery as yet unmasked. 


But how would their conjecturing brains be tasked, 
Had they to tell what tempted here to-night 

So wise a gathering, so fair, so bright !— 

Did they behold so honoured an array 

From labour, sport, devotion, drawn away, 
Attentive hearers of a schoolboy play ! 


We, gentle friends, the secret understand. 

’T was kindness waved her sympathetic wand ; 

*T was kindness charmed you through the wintry air, 
And filled our house as played some Irving there. 
We thank you. Let your kindness still befriend, 
And cheer our efforts to a prosperous end. 


What is’t we bring? A piece not old, not new :'— 
No tragedy of deep Shaksperian hue ; 

No melodrame in crimson horrors dyed, 

Where to slow music ghosts and villains glide; 

No comedy,—life wittily expressed ; 





A Prologue to Aladdin. 151 


We bring on antique tale a modern jest, 
Arabian fancies in a motley vest. 

"Tis a light theme; yet may a thoughtful eye 
Beneath the gay disguise a moral spy. 


“ New lamps for old!” “You'll hear the cry outrunog 
With guileful promise from a buleful tongue. 
You'll see true worth, by its dull mien belied, 

For valueless appearance cast aside, 
A glittering sham the talisman expel 
That bound the Genii with mighty spell. 


- 
~ 


New lamps for old!’’ How many are the lights 
With vying claims to dissipate our nights! 

In many a civic hall the battle rages,— 

What shall replace the tallow of past ages ?”’ 
It taxes all the wit of civic sages,— 

Taxes our pockets too, while hope’s deferred. 
But Prudence, to a final choice slow-stirred, 
Half-trusts each tale, until the next is heard. 


‘¢ New lamps for old?’’ The theory-monger, blind 
To all that’s real, building on the wind ; 
The cocksure scientist, whose passing craze 
Is hailed as dogma, till its vogue decays ; 
Reformers, whom their ignorance makes bold ;— 
All such as these still come, with stock unsold, 
To press on us their new lamps for our old. 


And still the unwise are duped! They sell the lights 
‘hat chartered life’s career, for meteorites 

Of vague Opinion, that bewilder stili 

The eternal lines of Right, of Goud and UI. 

Sad is their fate, who guide by such their ways! 
Through many a dreary mist and weary maze 

They roam uncertain till their day is done; 

Their sun is set, before their work begun. 


One Light outshines,—athwart the golden bars 

Of heaven outpoured, than solitary stars 

More whitely pure, more straight than arrow-flight, 
More changeless-radiant than the Polar Light, 
Inerrant guide, how wild soe’er the track, - ! 
Plain to clear eyes, howe’er the clouds be black. | 





152 The Irish Monthly. 


’Tis Faith! With her each lesser beacon-fire— 
Lamplet or constellation—must conspire ; 
Oil from her silver fount each flame must seek 
That points the soul aloft to Wisdom’s peak. 
"T'was her pure lustre, when the lamps were dead, 
Of human lore, and other hopes were fled, 
Was light and fire and hope to Irish hearts. 
Be it our beacon still to play our parts 
As Irishmen, to God and Ireland true, 
Resolved—and wise—to suffer and to do! 

G. ON. 


THROUGH THE DARK NIGHT. 
or, 


THIRTY YEARS AGO. 


 ———— 


CHarTeR XXXIII. 
THE GOOD PEOPLE. 


THE leafy month of June came on, and Vincent and Ethna were 
making preparations for paying their annual visit to Mona. The 
Madam had come up to town before Christmas, but ten days had. 
given her enough of city life, and she returned to her quiet hills, 
satisfied that her daughter was excellently married and mated. 

The evening before they left, Lizzie wrapped a few shillings im 
piece of paper and placed it in the hole in the wall, pointed out by 
the woman whom she had assisted ; she looked in the morning and 
found it gone. 

The sky was becoming deeper and darker, and the moon 
brighter, when the lights in Mona appeared to the travellers. 
They had dined with Mr, Talbot in Beltard, and drove away im 
the quiet gloaming. Ethna was glad to return home, her feelings 





Through the Dark Night. 153 


were somewhat altered from what tl:ey had been the year before; 
she was a little tired, tho novelty of her social success wearing off, 
and she was beginning to realise that there was monotony in the 
wildest motion, and a sameness iu pleasure that works to the 
surface after a time; she heard the same platitudes, and danced the 
same dances with the same, or almost the same, people every night. 
It was unsatisfying after all, an unsubstantial kind of happiness. 

The evening after they arrived at Mona, they attended the 
annual festival kept at an old Danish fort up the mountain, where 
an enormous bonfire blazed, and all the young people round the 
country danced to the music of some amateur violin player. Lizzie 
Lynch in her city costume, her hair done up in the latest fashion, 
distracted the attention of all the country girls, who only took 
their eyes off her when the party from Mona arrived, accompanied 
by Father Garrett and Nell O'Malley. Ethna shook hands and 
greeted all her old friends, who welcomed her with warm bene- 
dictions. 

é“ [I am proud to welcome your ladyship from the great city,” 
said Mr. Lynch, with dignity. ‘My little girl whom you have 
honoured with your patronage, has conveyed to me some idea of 
your grandeur in the metropolis. Yet you come amongst us like 
the Miss Ethna we knew of old—condescending as ever.”’ 

é“ Tam more pleased at the welcome I get from my old neigh- 
bours than any grandeur elsewhere, Mr. Lynch.” 

é It 1s kind of you to say so—very kind, Mrs. Talbot. Long 
may you enjoy your rank andfortune. You went from among us 
to show the world what virtue and beauty we rear in our remote 
locality, among our ancient hills.” 

“é You overrate me, Mr. Lynch,” said Ethna, laughing. 

“ Most certainly not, ma’am—wmost certainly not. You have, 
in fact, exceeded our expectations, and developed into finer pro- 
portions than we anticipated. There is an advantage in a visit to 
the metropolis which cannot be ignored. Little Lizzie seems to 
have caught the look of the town— tis not unbecoming, your lady- 
ship; ’tis not unbecoming.” 

They sat down upon the green mound that enclosed the fort. 
Hawthorn trees, shorn of their fragrant blossoms, stood here and 
there, with an occasional elder tree and tall mountain ash ; a hedge 
ran half-way round, out of which peeped pink and white wild 
roses and woodbine; graceful ferns pushed their way through 


154 The Irish Monthly 


the tangle, sheltering the purple foxglove, and gorse in ful 
bloom seemed to make golden atmosphere over rhe land. 

Vendors of cakes and oranges were among the people, and a 
distant corner appeared to have peculiar ‘powers of attraction, so 
many paid a momentary visit to it, emerging from the shelter of 
the hedge, passing their hands hastily across thoir mouths, with a 
glance in Father Garrett s direction. 

' The dancers footed it merrily on the soft, green sward. Nora 
flitted about in great glee, clapping her hands in ecstacy as the 
children chased each other with branches of burning furze, sending 
the sparks flying near and far, or. piled up the bonfire till the 
yellow tongues of flame leaped higher and higher into the serene 
skies. 

Mr. Lynch, being a man dressed in authority, constituted 
himself the Fadladeen of all social assemblies, praising or con- 
demning as he thought necessary. 

é“ Not bad, Patsy Kerin, not bad at all,” he said, asa fine 
young peasant concluded a moneen jig, with an elaborate flourish 
of legs and arms. ‘ One must be athletic to shine in the Terpsi- 
chorean art; an art not to be despised ; for it seems to be natural to 
man, as the Almighty has created him.” 

é“ David danced before the ark,” remarked Father Garrett ; 
““ go we cannot deny but it was used to express holy emotion.” 

“ Everything happy dances,” said Nelly. “ The river in the 
sun; the leaves in the light; little lambs and little children. I 
would dance myself if anyone asked me.” 

“I am tired of dancing,” replied Ethna. ‘I suppose one gets 
tired of everything.” 

“ How different we are,” said Nell, laughing. ‘I have not 
had enough of anything to get tired of it. I am like one before 
breakfast, while you are after dinner. Look at Nora among the 
furze bushes ; she looks like a fairy in her red dress.” 

‘The fairies have taken wing,” raplied Ethna. “The 
world has become too practical for them.” 

sé The National School has expelled them,” said Father Garrett. 
“Superstition has bevome a thing of the past.” 

“YT don’t know that, your reverence; I don’t know that. 
There isa disposition in the human mind to give credit to the 
marvellous, particularly among a race the Almighty has endowed 
with imagination. Strange stories are still related and believed. 


, OU 


Through the Dark Night. 155 


. but, no doubt, the rising generation. will have such a tendency 
eradicated from their minds. We are becoming more enlightened 
every day, your reverence—every day; and guí docet discit.”’ 

é Did you hear of the curious storm over the lake on yester- 
day ?” asked Nell. ‘Johnny Clune was telling me about it: 
there he is now. Call him, till he gives you an account of it.” 

An elderly man advanced in answer to Father Garrett’s call. 
and touched his hat. 

“Sit down, Johnny,” said the priest. “ What about the storm 
on the the lake yesterday ? 1 did not think there wasa puff of 
wind anywhere ?” 

“Tt occurred to me the clouds were charged with a large 
amount of electric fluid,” remarked Mr. Lynch. “I made some 
observations connected with the atmosphere when the sun was in 
the zenith.” 

‘Well, your reverence, I only know as the neighbours tould 
me, said the countryman, sitting down upon the grass. ‘“ But 
they say for certain that there was a quare wind entirely about 
the lake; there was not a puff all around, but the noise of 
the world over the water, an’ the wind sucking it up as if there 
was a hundred horses drinkin’.”’ 

“Tt does not seem to be much lessened,” replied Father 
Garrett. . 

‘‘Tyeh, not a lessen, your reverence ; it all come back again in 
a minit. SureI know you don’t give ear tothe like, but the ould 
people would tell ye there was more in the air than the people 
seen. Often my father tould me, God be merciful to him, of what 
happened to a next-door neighbour of his when he lived near 
Carrigahoult.”’ 

“ All ignorance,” said Mr. Lynch compassionately ; “ want of 
intellect and learning.” 

é My father was as well read a man as you'd meet in a day’s 
walk,” replied the countryman rather indignantly, “an” got plenty 
of schoolin’ when he was a gorsoon. He needn’t draw his breath 
at a big word, my hand to you.” 

é But tell us the story, Johnny,’’ said Ethna. . 

é [ will, your honour, an’ welcome, an’ not a word of a lie in 
it. But sure Father Garrett will only be laughin’ at me. My 
father knew the man well; he lived in the next field to him, an’ 
they’d give each other a helpin’ hand whenever they could. It 


=_ 


156 . The Irish Monthly. 


happened one spring, just as Micky Conway —that was the man’s 
name—was goin’ to put down a crop of oats, that his servant boy 
took ill in the lucky hour, an’ he had to lave him there, an’ go into 
the infirmary.” 

“ Mickey didn’t know in the wide world what to do, or who'd 
guide the horses; he called out his wife—the devil a good she 
was. He called out the servant-maid, and, faith, she wasn’t much 
betther. There he was, not knowin’ wkere to turn to, when who 
' should he see comin’ acrass the field but a good strahunack of a 
young man. ‘ God save you, young man,’ says he to him. Mickey 
was a quiet, civil-spoken man. ‘ An’ you, too,’ sez the young 
man, spakin’ up. ‘An’ isn’t it quare guides you have for your 
horses ?’ sez he. ‘ Begor, I can’t help it,’ says Mickey, an’ he up 
an’ tould him how the servant boy took sick an’ had to lave him’ 
without a Christian to take his place. ‘’T'was a lucky time 1 
came, so, sez the young man, ‘for I’m lookin’ for a place,’ sez 
he, ‘an’, maybe, we could agree with wan another,’ ‘ What wages 
are you axin’? sez Mickey. ‘My wages isn’t much,’ sez 
the young man; ‘all I’ll ax is a bag of corn an’ a load of hay 
when ’tis mowed and reaped,’ sez he. Yerra Mickey thought he 
was made for ever, an’ said he would take him at once. ‘ There’s 
another thing I have to tell you,’ sez the young man, ‘an’ ’tis 
this: if you ever send a woman with a red cloak on her to call 
me to my victuals, sight or light of me you'll never see to do a 
stroke of work for you again,’ scz he. ‘ If that’s all,’ sez Mickey, 
‘ weneedn’t be in dread, for there isn’ta red cloakin the house,’ sex 
he. Faith the young man fell to the work, an’ there was no betther 
boy than him, up early an’ late; an’ things was goin’ on as fine 
ag ever you seen when, one day that Mickey was ata fair, the 
ould boy put it into the head of his wife to try what was the 
manin’ of the red cloak. She wasa woman that always wanted 
to know the ins an’ outs of everythin’. Sure, they’re all dead 
now, the light of heaven to them.” 

“Curiosity,” said Mr. Lynch, “curiosity, a propensity in- 
herited by us from our first mother.” 

“ Well, your honour,” continued the countryman, “she done 
nothin’ but run across the field to my grandmother. ‘Biddy, 


sez she, ‘lend me the loan of your red cloak for half an hour,’ sez 


she. My grandmother bid her take it off the peg in the room in- 
side ; so she did, clappedit about her, an’ wentto the kitchen garden 





Through the Dark Niyht. 157 


e 


where the strange boy was diggin’ away for himself. ‘ James 
Howard, come into your dinner,’ sez she, calling out to him. He 
looked round at her, an’ glory be to God, the next minute she 
hadn’t tale or tidin’s of him no more than if the ground swallowed 
him. She went back to the house tame enough, my hand to you, 
and never let on to Mickey what she had done. 

‘That was well an’ good. Mickey did the best he could, an’ 
the time passed on till the harvest came, an’ a finer haggard of 
hay an’ oats was never. stacked before for him. He was just in 
the act of finishin’ it off, when who in the world did he see facin’ 
him in it but the strange young man that helped him in the 
spring. ‘1’m come for my load of hay an’ my bag of corn,’ sez 
the young man, sez he, ‘ accordin’ to our bargain.’ ‘ You don’t 
deserve to get ‘um,’ sez Mickey. ‘ You left me there in the 
middle of my hurry,’ sez he, instead of stoppin’ to reap what you 
sown.’ ‘Ax your wife the reason of that,’ sez the young man. 
“I won't dispute you,’ sez Mickey, who was no manner of a negur. 
‘ The crops are good,’ sez he, ‘so take yonr load of hay and bag 
of corn,’ The boy took the pitchfork, and, begor, before you cud 
ery trapstick, he had every sack of corn and every rick of hay in 
the place in two bundles. ‘Stop,’ says Mickey, ‘ stop at once, sez 
he. ‘Are you going to take all I have in the world?’ ‘The 
bargain was made,’ sezthe young man, with an ugly laugh, ‘an’ 
I may as well tell you, all the oats in Munsther wouldn’t fill my 
bag, or all the hay in it make my bundle. An’ maybe, Id take a 
thing to eat “um, too,’ sez he. With that he puts a finger in his 
mouth and gave a whistle that would rise the head of you, an’ 
my dear, from every quarter of the land the cows began to answer 
him an’ come towards him. An’ twasn’t long till Mickey seen 
cows an’ corn an’ hay going out the road before him. 

“Away with him as hard as ever he could leg it to a little 
tailor in Carrigahoult, who had great knowledge, an’ tould him 
his story. * Get up at once to the biggist cliff in Kilkee,’ sez the 
little tailor, ‘an’ as loud as ’tis in your head call on Pat Dillon to 
save his neighbours. That’s the king of the fairies from Ulster 
that came to you,’ sez he, ‘an’ if you don’t make haste he'll bring 
hunger on the land.” 

‘* My hand to you, Mickey didn’t let the grass grow under him 
till bestood high an’ dhry above on the top of the cliff as the tailor 

ould him, an’ as loud as ’twas in him he shouted out to Pat 


158 The Irish Monthly. 


Dillon to come to the rescue of his neighbors. Yerra in one 
minute two big clouds came out over the say, an’ the biggest fight 
ever you seen or heard of began at the back of ’um, screechin’ an’ 
roarin’ as if the wide world of people was in it, the say risin” an’ the 
wind blowin’, as if there was the greatest storm in the world. The 
two factions were at it hard an’ fast, an’ at long last one got the 
upper hand of the other, an’ when Mickey looked back what did 
he see but all the cows, an’ bay, an’ corn that was comin’ acrass 
the country with the fairy man turning right back agen faster 
than they came, an’ when he reached home he found his share of 
"um safe an’ sound within in the haggard as if there never was 
a hand laid to ’um.” 

“ And who was Pat Dillon ?”’ asked Ethna. ‘I supposeit was 
he that saved them.” 

“T'was to be sure, your honour; he was a boy who came be a 
strange death not long before. They say he was taken for certain, 


but he stood well to his country at any rate. Sure I’m only tellin’ 
as I heard the neighbours talkin’, your reverence.” 


“Oh, you are a sensible man, Johnny Clune;” said Father 
Garrett. ‘‘1’ll engage you would not remember a sermon of mine 
half as well as that old wife’s story.” 

“ I like to hear stories about the good people,” said Nell; “I 
think them lovely ; I am grateful to Hood for writing a ‘ Plea for 
the Midsummer Fairies;’ Nora and I search the foxglove some- 
times for a little fairy; we are always on the watch for a 
leprechaun.” 

“ It, would be a pleasant thing to have a dainty Ariel at our 
command,” replied Ethna. “ What would you ask him to do, 
Nell ?” 

‘To watch over those I care for,” said Nell. 

“ Well, belief in the good people is a consoling consideration 
to those who labour under such hallucinations,’ remarked Mr. 
Lynch. ‘‘ People necessarily come into proximity with bad persons 
in this lower world. “Tis consoling to believe in a sphere where 
there are only good ones. Ha, ha, ha.” . 

“°Tis not a right thing to be makin’ a laugh of ’em at al1,?? 
said the countryman ; “‘’tisn’t safe walkin’ through a strange 
bog.” 

They lingered till they saw the bonfires blasing upon every 
peak and summit, illuminating the quiet night. The moon sailed 





Through the Dark Night. 159 


on in lonely splondour; the corncrakes answered each other in 
the meadow lands; and the musio of the violin mingling with the 
laughing voices of the children gave a + human interest to the 
solitary mountain side. 





CHAPTER XXXIV. 


THE BLACK CASE IN DANGER. 


The week after they arrived at Mona, Vincent went on an 
excursion into Kerry. He returned in afew days delighted 
with the trip and arranged that he and Ethna should take a run 
there when the trees had assumed the varied colours of autumn. 
That night he awoke with a start and said : 

“ Ethna, where have you put the black case ?”’ 

é“ What case P” she answered, drowsily. é There was no case, 
only your portmanteau and rugs.” 

“ Good heavens, are you sure ?”’ 

“ Yes, quite sure. The driver left them inside the door, I told 
Lizzie to put them by. Are you certain you had it P” 

‘Yes, certain. I put it into the well of the car with my own 
hands. I forgot all about it when I was speaking to you. I must 
follow the jarvey. He was to put up at Monslena.” He was 
hastily dressing as he spoke. 

“Ts it at this time of night? Why, you'll alarm the village 
if you knock people up at this hour. You may be sure it will be 
safe, that Considine is an honest man. What was in it that you 
are in such a fright about ?” 

“é Papers, papers of importance.” 

“é Oh, who on earth would steal old law papers ?”’ 

He left the room noiselessly ; in a few moments Ethna heard the 
sound of horses’ steps going rapidly down the avenue and fell 
asleep again. She was awakened by the striking of a match and 
saw Vincent by the bedside. 

“é So you did not go?” she said. “I thought I heard you 
riding off,” . 

é Yes,” he answered. “TI went and came, and luckily got 
what I was looking for. I saw Considine’s car outside his cousin’s, 
and searched the well, where I found thecase. I was born under 
a luoky star, and there were police in Monaleena too.”’ 


160. The Irwh Monthly. 


é You don’t think the police would steal it P” said Ethna. 

“They might take charge of it,” he replied, “ and put me to 
some trouble.” 

The day before Ethna left, she and Nell O’Malley had a 
ramble over the hills, paying farewell visits to her peasant 
friends, They sat down on the old bridge where a couple of years 
before Philip Moore had whispered soft nothings that had the 
effect of deepening and intensifying the beauty of all: earthly 
things. The joy and the pain were all passed away, but a feeling 
of sadness crept over her—a feeling like that with which we look 
over a book that enchanted us in the dreaming days ef youth, and 
find the illusion gone—the hero an impossible prig; the 
heroine a tiresome tester of patience and fidelity. 

“T wonder how you can stand the monotony of Monaleena,” 
said Ethna. ‘ It seems three months since I came down.” 

é You have nothing to do here; I havea great deal—that 
makes a difference in any place,” answered Nell. ‘“‘One must 
either have occupation or amusement.”’ 

é“ Do you ever think of getting married ?” asked Ethna. 

A bright flush deepened the colour in Nell’s cheeks. 

“ I suppose I do, sometimes,” she answered with an embarrassed 
laugh, “ but the right man has not come yet.” 

é What a curious fellow that Joe Smith was,” said Ethna, 
musingly. ‘‘ Do you know where he is now ?”’ 

“In America, I believe,” replied Nell, bending down to look 
at the water. 

“ We met him often in Dublin last winter. Was it not strange 
about the horse? He would not sell him, though Vincent would 
have given any money for him. It sometimes occurred to me 
that there was some mystery about him. He was here a few 
times ?”’ 

“ Yes, for a couple of days.” 

é He was in very good society in Dublin. Would it not be 
romantic if he was a Fenian leader P”” 

The colour died away from Nell’s cheeks, and a sad look came 
into her eyes. 

é“ A dangerous romance,” she said. ‘‘If you thought he was 
one, would you not be afraid to have hini intimate with Mr. 
Talbot ? ” 

‘Oh, not I. Patriotism is not Vincent’s line. People that 





Through the Dark Night. | 161 


take life easily don’t risk their necks for the good of their country. 
If I were a man, I would be in the middle of whatever was stirring. 
Life is a tame thing for women.” 

‘‘T am not of heroic mould,” said Nell. ‘‘ Likely if I were in 
a fight I would run away, like the Irishman who said he had the 
bravest heart in the world, but a cowardly pair of legs always ran 
off with him.” 

é“ The next best thing to be in the battle oneself is to have the 
men of one’s family in it,” Ethna said. ‘ You and I could load 
guns if we had anyone to firethem. I’d like the excitement.” 

é T would think more of the loss of life than of the gain and 
cause,” answered Nell, “ You would feel differently if Mr. ‘Talbot 
were in danger.” 

é Who ever heard of an attorney’s self-sacrifice” P said Ethna, 
laughing. “ His isa minor kind of warfare; encouraging his 
neighbours to legal combat. Let us move on now. This old 
bridge needs no one to defend it.” 


CHAPTER XXX V, 
A MBETING. 


When the Talbots reached Dublin again, they found several 
invitations awaiting them, among the number one from Henry 
Moore, who was still in Kingstown, for the following week. 

Ethna was determined to outshine herself. The visit to the 
country had freshened her mentally and physically,and she brought 
her intellectual activity to the creation of a new toilette for the 
forthcoming ball. When the night arrived her efforts were crowned 
with complete success, and in a dress of white satin and silver she 
looked very fresh and lovely. 

“ By Jove, I have the handsomest wife to be found. I should 
give you a kiss, Eth, only you would howlabout your tulle,” said 
Vincent. ‘‘Let me fasten your glove. Where is your cloak? 
Here, Lizzie, look alive. We will be extra fashionable.”’ 

The dancers were in full career when they arrived ; and after 
a few minutes’ conversation with the host and hostess, Ethna 
accepted the arm of an acquaintance, and was soon whirling 

Vou. xxvi. No 297 12 





162 The Irish Monthly. 


gracefully to the music of “The Power of Love.” She stopped 
for a moment to rest herself, and turning round, stood face to face 
with Philip Moore. She felt a sudden shock, but with quick 
feminine mastery of her emotion she recovered herself almost 
instantaneously, and, putting out her hand, said : 

“ How do you do, Mr. Moore? When did you return from 
foreign lands?” 

“‘To-night,” he replied. ‘I did not expect the pleasure of 
seeing you 80 soon.” 

“ Ah, you did not know we reside in Dublin, I suppose ?” 

“Are you rested, Mrs. Talbot? Shall we have another turn ”’? 
said her partner. 

é With pleasure,” and they again mingled in the bewildering 
maze of revolving human beings. 

Philip Moore lcoked after her with mingled feelings of surprise, 
annoyance, and admiration. He had been in love with her after 
his fashion, a couple of years ago; he would have married her if 
she had had a larger account at her banker’s. Depriving himself 
of the gratification of so doing had been unpleasant; but still he 
managed to get along very comfortably, and was troubled by no 
useless regrets. Here she was now, far handsomer than ever she 
had been; a centre of attraction; animated, self-possessed, and 
the property of another man. He stood watching her curiously 
for some time. Was that the shy, blushing face that he used to 
raise to his on the hills of Mona? Where wasthe love-light that 
made those large, bright eyes sodewy? It seemed impossible to 
associate her now with the impulsive mountain maid who had been 
so much in love with him. 

Ethna managed in the course of the evening to gaze unobserved 
on the man who had once shaken the great deeps of her nature ; 
whom she would have followed unhesitatingly over the rough 
places of the world; and without whom she thought it almost 
impossible to live. 

All that emotion was gone. She realised it as she looked at 
him, a sort of wonder stealing over her as she thought of the 
old bliss and agony of which he had been the cause. What was 
in him that so strangely touched her? He was not more distin- 
guished in appearance than the men around— Vincent even Was 
better looking—and as well as she could remember, he never gave 

assion to an opinion that would warrant one in supposing that 








Through the Dark Night. 163 


he had a finer disposition than the ordinary run of ordinary men. 

She blushed with shame as she glanced backward, and an impulse 
of passionate anger made her almost hate him for having given her 
cause to blush. She exulted that she was married, and handsome 
and admired, no longer the love-lorn maid uttering lamentations 
for false knight, but a wedded belle, with men at her beck and call 
to obey her slightest behest. : 

Never was she so brilliant and beautiful as at the Moores’ ball ; 
her cheeks and eyes were radiant, and her gay badinage kept her in 
an atmosphere of low laughter. Philip Moore asked her to dance, 
and her graceful nonchalance, her delightful indifference, were a 
new and rather irritating revelation. She provoked him into making 
some covert allusion to Mona and old times, but she appeared to be 
perfectly insensible, and alluded momentarily to the past as if it 
contained nothing either to remember or forget. 

AttTiE O’Brien, 
(To be continued) . 














-A SONG FOR MAROH. 


[FE daisies white, with their hearts of gold, 
Must have danced on the Irish leas, 
And the blossoms gleamed on the sloe boughs old 
Like the foam on tropic seas ; 
And the larks, I think, our island o’er 
Sang songs of ecstasy 
When Gabriel God’s message bore 
To a maid in Galilee. 
For the birds might well sing songs of mirth 
And the boughs be gaily drest 
In the land of all the lands on earth 
Where Mary’s loved the best. 


Our Irish skies were bright and clear 
On that glad and happy day ; : 
And the Irish brooks sang far and near, 
As they went their seaward way; 
And the breezes, fragrant, fresh and keen, 
With a joyous murmur swept 
Through the swaying boughs of the larches, green 
As Patrick’s faith has kept. 
For the larch might well its tassels ring, 
And rivers merrily run, 
In a land where saints were yet to sing 
The praise of Mary’s Son. 
MAGpALEN Rook. 


( 164 ) 


CLAVIS ACROSTICA. 
A Key To “Dustin Acrostics.” 
Part XIII. 


I begin before No. 26 of our Acrostics, the only one that we 
left to be solved in our February instalment, has reached our 
readers; and any remarks suggested by the correspondence that 
may come on the subject oan be added later on. 

Some day, thirty odd years ago, when this intellectual pastime 
of puzzling one another with clever double acrostics amused 
a knot chiefly of Dublin barristers, the word doit ooourred 
as a proper subject for this ingenious trick to “O’’—who 
was then John O’Hagan, Q.C.—perhaps when walking home 
tired from the Four Courts. It splits nicely, small as it is, 
into two words of equal length, Do sí, which we may take as a 
translation of the word of command given by the Centurion of the 
Domine non sum dignus: “ Fao hoo, et faoit” (Matth. viii., 10). 
The word doit itself seems to come from digitus and doigt, and is 
nearly the same in Dutch and German asin French; and old 
Skinner explains this derivation by pretending that the coin con- 
tained ‘‘as much brass as could be covered by the tip of the 
finger.” We are told that it was a small Dutch coin valued at the 
eighth of a penny, and an ancient Scotch coin one twelfth of a 
penny sterling. But it was, and sometimes is, taken to mean any- 
thing of little value, a trifle. ‘I would not give a doit for it.” 
How well and how tersely all this is expressed by ““O” in the 
couplet : 


Severed, we summon to action ; 
u Blent, we’re an obsolete fraction. 


What words beginning and ending respectively D—I, and 
again O—T, shallbe given as “lights? ” The Author of ‘‘ Our- 
selves Alone” fixed on Delhi and Orient, shadowing forth each 
in a line. 

Seat of successive empires lost and won, 
Seat of that seat, proud region of the sun. 





Clavis Acrostica. 165 


We now hand over to the ingenuity of our readers No. 27 of 
these “ Dublin Acrostics.” It is by “ R.,” and we rejoice that we 
hold the answer in Mr. Reeve’s own handwriting. 


No. 27. 


Now, like a ruthless despot 
Whom trembling crowds obey, 

My first subdues and crushes 
All things beneath its sway. 

A noted bruiser also— 
And greater than Jem Mace — 

For Mace beneath its counters 
Would be in evil case. 

But hark! (and small the change is) 
Tne Magyar captive brave 

By funeral chimes, low pealing, 
Is summoned to his grave. 

To deal forth death and ruin, 
To scatter and destroy, 

And cause the worst disunion 
Is oft my second’s joy. 

And yet—oh ! seeming marvel— 
As oft its chief delight 

With soft and gentle influence 
To strengthen and unite. 

But when my first and second 
Their agency combine, 

(As quickened by affliction, 
The truest virtues shine) 

So crushed, oppressed, but bettered 
By their most cruel test, 

‘he power that erst slept uselesaly 
Brings peace, and joy, and rest. 


1, Ah! cruel chimes, ye sound love's funeral knell— 
The sailor bids his weeping maid farewell. 
2. Time, and life's ordeal, alone can show 
If true or false the metal be below. 
3. Give me my friend, with him, oh! wealth untold 
Of gleaming jewels, and of ruddy gold. 
4. Poor Mantalini! for thy wife no more / 
Consents to liquidate thy little score. 
5. Even as we seek for violets in the shade, 
So did thy lover seek thee gentle maid ! 
6. Down from the hill the young Ascanius came 


Panting for nobler foe—more dangerous game. 
R. 


( 166 ) 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


1. We are delighted to observe the literary talent that is developing 
in Catholic Australia. Of the general literature of Australia we have 
caught only a glimpse or two; but the conductors of Zhe Austral Light 
have allowed us to mark the steady improvement, external and 
internal, in that extremely interesting.and well written periodical. We 
have no idea where Narbethong lies on the map of the great 
Australian continent; but from that quiet spot Miss Marion Miller 
sends a supply of verse and prose, remarkable for its freshness and its 
copiousness. If “ Una Roe”’ be a pen-name, we advise this pleasant 
writer to begin at once to win the credit of all her writing for her own 
real name. Many priests and laymen contribute essays as solid and 
learned as are to be found in the best European magazines. The 
Catholics of Australia are bound to support such a magazine as this. 
The subscription is only half of what we should have guessed it to be. 

2. There is another Catholic literary enterprise on which we dure 
to cast an admiring glance from afar. We have several times called 
attention to “The Records of the American Catholic Historical 
Society of Philadelphia,” which are published quarterly at 715 Spruce 
Street, Philadelphia. Itis maintained with admirable zeal; and a 
series of its volumes will be of priceless value for the historian of the 
Catholic Church in America. In the new Part (December, 1897) 
there is another large and most valuable instalment of the American 
documents preserved in the archives of the Jrish College in Rome, 
which FE. Kittel, the Archivist of the Society, has spent many months 
transcribing. Letters of Bishop England, Father Mathew, and priests 
and bishops connected with the United States are given in preat 
numbers in the present and recent quarterly parts. Some twelve or 
twenty portraits of prelates and pictures of churclies, &., are also 

furnished in this new number. The most interesting item is the diary 
kept by the Sisters of Charity in charge of the Satterlee Military Chapel, 
Philadelphia, in the years of the War 1862-65. What a joy, the 
existence of that hospital was to the poor Irish soldiers! Many happy 
deaths are described, especially of some who only at the end embraced 
eagerly the faith of Ireland. This part of the ‘‘ Records’? has had the 
very great advantage of being edited by Miss Sarah ‘{rainer Smith. 

3. Maurice Fraucis Egan, who is now Professor of English 
Language and Literature in the Catholic University of America, con- 
tributed to its “ Bulletin ” last July an essay on ‘“‘ New Handbooks of 


Philosophy,” which has been issued as a separate brochure 


Notes on New Books. 167 


(Washington: Stormont and Jackson). It shows Dr. Egan’s 
familiarity with contemporary fiction in England and France. It shows 
also his grasp of high principles and a vigour of style which is some- 
times so subtle aud so literary as almost to seem a little affected. We 
prefer the graver treatment of the same subject by Father Alexander 
Gallerani, S.J., in the Croddta Cattolica, in an essay which has been 
reprinted separately in Italy, and has been translated in Belgium, 
under the title Fau/ i louer le Mérite littéraire des Ecrtvains mauvais ? 
Some Catholics are prone to praise those evil-doers for literary gifts 
which they fortunately possess in very scanty measure. Everything 
that Dr. Egan writes is well worthy of careful study. He is very 
generous in praise as well as vigorous in censure. 


4. Burns and Oates have published a new Catholic tale of more 
than two hundred pages, ‘‘ A Noble Revenge.” by White Avis, author 
of “ A Catholic Girl in the World,” of which we retain a favourable 
but vague impression, The present story is very good and interesting. 
How will it fare in the hands of those who do not know French? In 
two cases & translation is given in a footnote; but a hundred other 
cases require the same assistance. Though the style is good, in 
several instances a word is used quite incorrectly. ‘‘ White Avis”’ is 
avery ambiguous name, leaving us in doubt about our pronouns— 
male or female, matron or maid—but we cannot be far wrong in 
wishing that Miss Avis may soon give us another story as interesting 
and edifying as this, and affording no opportunity for fault-finding. 


5. “Who fears to speak of 98?” A good many will speak of it 
during the present centenary year. That they may speak with some 
knowledge of the subject, the Rev. P. F. Kavanagh, 0.8S.F., has 
published, through Guy and Co., of Cork, a Centenary Edition of 
his ““ Popular History of the Insurrection of 1798, derived from every 
available record and reliable tradition.” ‘Chis is the third or fourth 
tradition; and though very well produced in a volume of more than 
‘wo hundred pages, it costs only half a crown. The work has received 
arge and important additions since its first appearance. 


6. The Catholic Truth Society have published for one penny, 
“The Second Spring,” one of the most beautiful sermons ever 
delivered by Cardinal Newman. It was preached at Oscott in 1852 in 
‘he first Synod of Westminster. Eor two pence we have also another 
iamous sermon of the Oratorian Cardinal’s, ‘‘ Christ upon the Waters.”’ 
To the same society we owe s»me new penny pamphlets, * ‘The Truth 
about Convents as told by Ex-Nuns and uthers,” “The Relics of the 
True Cross,” by the Rev. James Bellord, particularly well written and 
very carefully compiled; aud also a Sketch of St. Peter Fourier, 





168 The Irish Monthly. 


which condenses skilfully biographical volumes into a couple of dozen 
pages. 

7. Besides a reprint of M. C. Kavanagh’s ‘‘Instructions for 
Confession,’’ Messrs, Burns and Oates have sent us an account of “ St. 
Anne D’Auray,” by a Benedictine. On the first page he calls St. Simon 
first bishop of Jerusalem. Was not this St. James the Less? In 
fifty pages everything is told to us about La bonne Veeslle, and her 
beloved shrine in Brittany. 

8. Digby, Long and Co., of London, have brought out in a fantas- 
tically oblong form ‘‘ Portuguese Rita,” by M. P. Guimaraens. It is 
prettily written by one who seems to understand Portuguese customs ; 
but we cannot say that we admire very much its form or its substance. 

9. M.H Gill and Son, Dublin, publish “The Martyrdom of Father 
Coigley, a Tragic Episode of ’98,” by Mr. George Hobart, who has 
gathered into less than thirty pages all that Dr. R. R. Madden and 
Lord Cloncurry have put on record about Father Quigley, as he is 
generally called. 

10. We should have put this month in the first place as the most 
important addition to Catholic literature which this month has brought 
under our notice a new work of fiction by the gifted American lady 
who calls herself ‘‘ Christian Reid.” ‘ Fairy Gold”. has the further 
external guarantee that it appears under the auspices of Father D. E. 
Hudson and 7he Ave Maria of Notre Dame, Indiana. We have no 
idea of analyzing the plot, which is evolved at full length in three 
hundred and fifty pages. It is a beautiful and edifying atory written 
with Christian Reid’s wonted charm of style. 

11. Weend for this month with three pious little books. ‘The 
smallest is ‘‘ he Manual of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Com- 
passion,” by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster (London and 
Leamington: Art and Book Company.) This is No. 21 of “ Religious 
Booklets for the People,” by His Eminence Cardinal Vaughan, and 
regards the crusade of prayer for the conversion of England. 

Benziger Brothers, of New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago, hawe 
issued a pretty illustrated edition of the ‘Imitation of the Blessed 
Virgin,” translated from the French by Mrs. ‘Bennett Gladstone, 
Finally, from the same publishers we have ‘Visits to Jesus in the 
Tabernacle,” adapted and compiled from many approved sources by 
the Rev. Francis Xavier Lasance, Indeed this ought not to have 
been classed with the two preceding as a pious little book, for it ig a 
very ample collection of prayers and devotions for many hours and 
half-hours of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. It is proba biy 
the most complete and most varied of its kind, - 





APRIL, 1808. 


SOME NOTES ON “MACBETH.” 
IT. 


'PEERS are many points of interest in the play of MacóefA 

arising from the strange addition of baser matter which has 
been mixed with it as handed down to us in the Folio of 1623. It 
should be evident to anyone with a literary feeling that the play 
has been freely edited, and for the worse, if not in Shakspere’s 
time, at least shortly after his death. Indeed one may picture 
the stage-managers of those days frowning dubiously over the 
Shaksperian manuscript for reasons other than its illegibility, as 
they noted how devoid it was of the lighter comicelement. There 
is no work of Shakspere so entirely steeped in gloom. As Professor 
Dowden says, there is a line in the play which may be taken as a 
motto for the whole— Good things of day begin to droop and 
drowse.” “ It is the tragedy of the twilight, and the setting in of 
thick darkness upon a human soul. We assist at the spectacle 
of a terrible sunset in folded clouds of blood. To the last, how- 
ever, one thin hand’s-breadth of light remains—the sadness of the 
day without its strength.”* Of the twenty-four scenes into which 
the tragedy, as we now know it, is divided, no less than eleven are 
enacted between the hours of sunset and of dawn; and of the 
remaining thirteen which are played in daylight the three scenes 
of the battle at the close may be considered as one. Roughly 
speaking then, one half the action of this strange tragedy is 
played in the darkness. A Rembrandt-like gloom dominates the 


* Shakspere, his Mind and Art. p. 244, 
Vox. xxvi. No 298 13 











170 The Irish Monthly. 


whole; the light of one half the play is that of flaming torches, 
fitful moonlight, the pallid glare of lightning, or the red flare that 
flickers beneath the cauldron, which later dies down into the abyss. 
One would think that Shakspere had a prevision of modern stage- 
oraft in these matters; but even as we read we obtain a sense or the 
colouring from the text, and we feel how in a large degree the 
middle tones are wanting. The effect is to throw into strange relief 
the physical and moral attributes of the characters, as the same 
gloom or baleful light which pervade the material, are paramount 
also in the spiritual atmosphere. And as in the portraits by 
Rembrandt or Tintoret the deep gloom or negative side of the 
picture expresses often as much as, or more than the high light, so 
in this play the abiding element of darkness and of negation, into 
which we peer vainly, determines more our sense of the ethical 
force of the tragedy than do the intense gleams of light that 
strike across its surface. As Ruskin has taught us, it is where 
the shadows commence that we gain our sense of the contour of 
objects and their relations to each other—the daily renewal of the 
act of the Eternal Word—‘“ Appellavitque lucem Diem, tene- 
brasque Noctem.” To take for an instance the mental and moral 
paralysis which seizes the state on the murder of Dunoan; it is the 
confusion and terror which takes a primitive race in the shadow of 
the sun’s eclipse. To breathe again, much less to think, men 
must fly southward from the darkness, and seek the moral 
sunshine of the Confessor’s Court. And here one may note the 
significance that the avenger of Macbeth is nota hero, with a 
splendour of courage and mastery of things, like Edgar in Aing 
Tear, Macduff is an unheroic specimen of manhood, who shares 
in the general panic, flies to England, and leaves wife and children 
to swell the list of the victims to Macbeth’s maniacal outburst in 
crime. ‘I'he real destroyer of Macbeth, as Shakspere would have 
us to see it, is the inevitable irony which throughout compels him 
to compass his own destruction. By this is meant rather the 
Etroneta of the Greek dramatists than our modern application of 
the word. ‘To borrow from the notion of the Bhuddist philosophy, 
Macbeth bears his “ Karma” with him, and it takes him at last 
“to his own place.” 
Shakspere in none of his plays has so abandoned himself to the 
ironical method as in this one; and in so doing he has come 
nearer to the manner of the old Greek dramatists than he had 








Some Notes on Macbeth. 171 


reached before, or wasever toreach again, For the irony in Lear is 
something very different ; it is the irony of cosmic forces let loose 
against the individual by his own acts, wherein he at once becomes 
helpless and passive, tossed hither and thither on the energies of 
the storm. But to the end the irony of Macbeth comes from 
within, not from without. To the last he is fighting an army of 
shadows from which he would be free; and as the shadows give 
way before him, and he advances in imeginary success, we see him 
draw blindly ever nearer to the brink of the gulf of everlasting 
night into which he finally falls. As in the (idipus Tyrannus 
of Sophocles, or as in the man “ predestined ” to perdition in 
the idea of the old Calvinist, the very efforts toward security of 
such a soul make finally for his swifter ruin. 

“ As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods ; 

They kill us for their sport.’’* 
Shakspere gives no adherence to doctrine such as this. But in 
this play he does seem to adopt that other saying: “ Whom the 
gods wish to destroy the same they make mad.” 

Yet, though standing on the verge of lunacy, as defined by 
medical science, Macbeth never oversteps it. His disease is ever 
that of the soul rather than of the mind. A victim at one moment to 
an hallucination of sight—the drawn dagger in the air that points 
the way to his victim’s resting-place—he nevertheless does not 
allow it to control him as a delusion; by an effort of judgment he 
recognizes it as having no reality except in his own disordered 
senses and “ as a morbid product of mental excitement, and finally 
its existence is altogether repudiated and the ‘ bloody business’ 
of the mind is made answerable for the foolery of the senses.’’t 
Does Macbeth at any time again become a victim to hallucina- 
tion ? At first sight we might be inclined to answer in the 
affirmative since the Ghost of Banquo in the Banquet-scene is 
visible only to himself. Some critics, M, Taine for instance, 
have fallen into this error; and, among actors, the late Barry 
Sullivan went through this scene raving at an empty stool placed 
in the centre of the stage. ‘‘ Macbeth,” says M. Taine, “has 
Banquo murdered, and in the midst of a great feast he is informed 
of the success of his plan. He smiles, and proposes Banquo’s 
health. Suddenly, conscience-smitten, he sees the ghost of the 


“Lear. Act iv. Scene ii. 
t The Psychology of Shaukspere. Dr. Bucknill. 


172 The Irish Monthly. 


murdered man; for this phantom which Shakspere summons is 
not a mere stage trick; we feel that here the supernatural is 
unnecessary, and that Macbeth would create it, even if hell did not 
send it.” To view the matter thus is to miss one of Shakspere’s 
finest touches of realism. To begin with, Shakspere is careful to 
raise the Ghost of Banquo before Macbeth makes mention of him; 
Macbeth does not propose Banquo’s health here, he only regrets 
his absence, with the ghastly effect of irony in that the ghost of 


his victim is at the moment seated in Macbeth’s chair unknown to 
him. 


Rosse— His absence, sir, 
Lays blame upon his promise. Please it your Highness 
To grace it with your company ? 


Macbeth— The table's full. 


In the uncertain glimmer of the torchlight he looks down the 
row of guests, and sees the place where he should sit occupied. 
But as yet he knows not by whom, or by what. 


Lennoz—Here is a place reserved, sir. 
Macbeth— Where ? 


Even now he does not realize the import of that Figure— 
visible only to himself; and he cannot understand why the Thanes 
persist in pointing to a chair already filled. 


Lennoz—Here, my good lord,— What is’t that moves 
your Highness? 


Between these two sentences of Lennox is the point where 
Macbeth becomes first conscious ¢hat it is that fills the place reserved 
for him. He starts and quivers in every limb; and so real is the 
apparition and so wnghostitke its quality that he at first believes the 
body of his victim has been placed there to confront him, as he 
cries hoarsely—‘‘ Which. of you have done this?” Thereis a 
startled cry from the Thanes, '“ What, my good Lord?” . . 
But Macbeth does not hear them. Already that which he had 
thought to be the body of his victim begins to make menacing 


signs at him, and he recognises it fur what it is—a manifestation 
from another existence. 


Macheth—Thou canst not say I did it; never shake 
Thy gory locksat me. 








Some Notes on Macbeth. 173 


Though invisible to all save Macbeth, this apparition, then, is 
obviously intended by Shakspere to be objective, not subjective ; 
it is a real manifestation from the spiritual world, not an halluci- 
nation of Macbeth’s over excited imagination, akin to that of the 
air-drawn dagger; though in her efforts to arouse him Lady 
Macbeth tells him it is so. But, strange and suggestive fact, 
when the guests have departed, dismissed hurriedly by her, and 
they two are alone, we hear no more denials of its reality from her 
lips, no more scepticism and scorn on the “ proper stuff !” which 
has so disordered and confounded him. Does the spiritual world 
of Evil to which she has dedicated herself shake her soul also with 
manifestations which in herheroism she conceals from her tortured 
husband through the indomitable force of her will? It should 
be noted here that Mrs, Siddons held, and shewed by her acting, 
that the ghost of Banquo was visible also to Lady Macbeth. The 
question is open to conjecture, but beyond her silence immediately 
they are alone, there is nothing in the text to warrant the opinion. 
Nevertheless a latitude may be allowed outside the text to great 
artists interpreting Shakspere ; we should reverence the inspirations 
that come to these great minds, possessed by their a.t, and whelmed 
in their idea and realisation of their parts. 

I may here allude to a conjecture of Sir Henry Irving, made 
in the seventies I think, on his first performance of Macbeth, 
concerning the signifidance of the introduction by Shakspere of a 
“ Third Murderer” at the slaying of Banguo. ‘That Macbeth 
should mistrust the two hirelings commissioned to do the deed is 
natural enough. But that he should set any faith on the presence 
of a third of the same type is not so easily understood. The actor 
startled the critical world with the idea that the 7hird Murderer was 
Macbeth himself disguised. Of any conjecture that I know which 
is unsupported by stage tradition, or stage direction, this seems to 
me to be at once the most ingenious and probable. If readers will 
look through the few words spoken by this character in tho short 
scene in question, they will note the strange acquaintance possessed 
by this man with the secret intentions of Macbeth and the habits 
of those who frequent the castle. Unexpectedly introducing himself, 
he takes on himself much of the direction of the business; and when 
it fails by one half and Fleance escapes, it is he who bursts out 
into protest at the failure. “ Who did strike out the light ?” 
“There but one down; the son is fled.’ . . . What makes 








174 ‘The Irish Monthly. 


against the notion that it was Shakspere’s idea is the absence of 
any stage direction to that effect where it would be most certainly 
expected, and the absence of any stage tradition to bear out the 
idea. The present writer is indebted to Sir Henry Irving for a 
note as to the present positicn of his mind on this matter. He 
writes :—‘* I don’t lay any stress on that paper of mine—The 
Third Murderer—which appeared in The Nineteenth Century some 
years ago. It was simply a speculation which has nothing to do 
with any general conception of Macbeth, or its interpretation on 
the stage.” 

Here one may look back with interest and admiration at the 
long list of emendations and lights upon the text with which Sir 
Henry Irving’s acting, and his productions, taken as a whole, are 
associated. An actor stands in two positions asa critic. Tirst, 
we have the indescribable commentary of his genius; which 
includes the power of identifying himself with his conception of 
the character upon the one hand, and on the other the magnetic 
attraction established between himself and his audience, without 
which neither perfection of technique nor of elocution will compel 
their hearts to beat with his, or their souls to melt and become 
plastic in his hands. It is the fate of the actor that scarce even a 
dim record of this his greatest power can be retained for posterity ; 
it may be estimated as a power, but it cannot be felt through 
descriptive writing ; it is the possession only of those who have 
come under its personal spell. But the second position which he 
occupies as critic or student consists of the lights which he throws 
on the character, its motives, and on the text. These points are 
mainly developed by the actor’s techntqgue—by his reading of the 
text, and by what is known on the stage as his “ business.” Ina 
broad sense of the term it is largely through this element that the 
conviction of Macheth’s guilt previous to the opening of the play 
is impressed upon us. Irving’s “ business” never leaves us in 
doubt as to the meaning which he desires to convey. Itisnot a 
broad rough impression we obtain of: the character, lit by certain 
great moments of passion, or of pathos, or of terror; the great 
moments are there; but, illustrating and leading up to them, 
the carefully planned commentary on the text, and, what is more, 
on every sentence of it. It is not the physical, or, shall we say, 
physiological sspect of the animal man that interests him—it is 
‘* seychioal. To show us the workings of a man’s soul is more 


Some Notes on Macbeth. 175 


to Irving than to interest usin his externals by splendour of 
bearing or by grace of form. He can play the latter too when the 
interest centres mainly on the pathos of the figure, when a picture 
is more important than an analysis —as in “‘ Charles the First.” But 
when playing his great Shaksperian parts it is the analytical study 
of the soul, with its hidden springs of energy for good or for evil, 
for heroism or for crime, upon which he bends the full effort of his 
art. To achieve this it is evident that a larger amount of emphasis 
is needed than would be in the acting of one concerned chiefly in 
pourtraying the externals of character; hence a certain licence 
must be granted to the method :—namely, that the actor be 
allowed to take his audience straightway into his confidence, 
while seeming to exclude from it the persons of the play. Other- 
wise one might say, for instance, that all the remaining characters 
in “ Zhe Bella” are dolis, or fools, because they fail to recognise 
what we are made to feel from the first moment Mathias comes 
on the stage—that this man is the murderer of the Polish Jew. 
Such criticism, however, would at once deny the rightful use of the 
stage “aside.” If it is lawful for an actor to speak a speech as 
audible to his audience but supposed to be inaudible to those around 
him, it ehould also be allowed him to establish by facial expression 
and action a far more subtle confidence between himself and his 
audience to which those acting with him must be supposed to be 
blind. But to complete such a connection between the audience 
and himself implies that in the art which effects it there must be 
much that is strange, weird, and grotesque. But there is much 
that is strange, weird, and grotesque in the art of Dante, 
Blake, Beethoven, and, may we not add, with Macbeth and Lear 
before us, in the art of Shakspere also. It is tempting to your 
daily-paper critic to quote the advice of Hamlet to the players ; 
but who cannot see that, excellent as it is, there lurks behind it all 
Shakspere’3 art, and his smile of irony. To create the impression 
of realism it is good that Hamlet be didactic and academical when 
advising the player troupe in matters of art; it is ill to “ teara 
passion to tatters’’—be it so. But a little time after and we see 
Hamlet’s wild spring from the ground, and hear him shout in 
hysterical tension doggerel rhymes after the retreating figure of 
te King. Let us pot be too certain that Shakspere anywhere 
meant anything exactly as the surface meaning of his text would 


umply. 











176 The Irish Monthly. 


It was this duplicated system in his art, combined with his 
conception of the part, new to the stage, which confounded many 
of Irving’s critics. Instead of the fierce prehistoric animal of 
Salvini’s Macbeth—grafted on to a mixture of Norse Viking and 
Italian brigand—at his worst, full of energy and over-mastering 
ambition*—we saw suddenly step into our field of vision and at 
the same moment into the cirole of the witch’s spells, the haggard 
spectacle of a soul in hell; a soul that by an oath was self- 
dedicated to evil, and that had said unto it, “ Evil, be thou my 
good.” It allappeared so strange; hampered by our preconceived 
notions, we seemed to live in some realm of phantasy and of 
surmise “ where nothing is but what is not.” But the weird and 
terrible power of the actor compelled our attention, and gradually, 
by what subtle hints and premonitions only those who witnessed 
it can understand, our minds were prepared for the flood of light 
which Ellen Terry’s emphasis on Macbeth’s original guilt let in 
on the text. The nextday and all London’s dramatic critics were 
full of the “ new reading ” of the history of Macbeth’s crime. 

Those who have heard Sir Henry Irving merely read the text 
of this play, will have understood better than any his subtle power 
in bringing out points which they have never before noticed. A 
mere pause sometimes effects this. Take for instance Macbeth’s 
direction to the servant just preceding the murder of Duncan. 
As Irving acts this little bit, you can see already that the halluci- 
nation of the dagger is troubling his vision; with his eyes fixed 
on this, the message is given to the servant which is really a cipher 
to Lady Macbeth that he is prepared to do the deed when she has 
had all in readiness, and proved that the drugs have taken effect on 
the king’s chamber-grooms. 


“Go. . . bid thymistress. . . whenmy. . . drink. . . beready, 
She strike upon the bell.” 


In the pause which follows his utterance of the word “ drink,”? 
a spasm of horror crosses Irving’s face. He feels the horrible 
double meaning of the word ; the fiends “ who palter with us in a 


* Signor Tommasso Salvini—probably the greatest actor the world has seen — 
has seriously written a paper in which he expresses his belief that Shakspere 
originally wrote the sleepwalking scene for Macbeth—but, the actor being unable to 
compass it, the situation was transferred to the hands of a clever boy who played the 

se! part. 








Some Notes on Macbeth. 177 


double sense ” have got their hands upon his heart-strings, and his 
faculties; the bell is to be the signal that, this draught of blood is 
ready for his lips—when it rings, he says, “I go, and if is done! 
yon bell invites me’’—what wonder that, as the shadows press around 
him at the close of his existence, he uses the words ‘I have supped 
full of horrors” ? 

We left Macbeth and his wife in the deserted banquet hall— 
the last scene in which we see them together—and, before closing 
these desultory notes on the play, a further word is due to the 
creation of the wife’s part by Ellen Terry ; a creation as strange, 
and as unlike those of previous actresses in the part, as Irving’s was 
in his. We note here the sudden change of manner, from strenuous 
endeavour torouse her husband to a sense of his danger, to thelistless 
apathy and depression of spirit which are now beginning to take 
possession of her. This woman, with her finite mundane philo- 
sophies—“ a little water clears us of this deed, and then, how easy 
is’t ’—finds herself confronted in turn by the criminal monster 
she has helped to make. But a few minutes after she had helped 
him to cleanse his hands of Duncan’s blood her soul was frozen 
with horror to find that he hadslain the drugged grooms, whose faces 
she herself had smeared with blood. This is the man she had 
thought to be “too full o’ the milk of human kindness :” the sudden 
revulsion of feeling consequent on the revelation is too gieat a 
strain on her woman’s nature, since it has touched her ideals, and 
she faints away. From thence to the end her existence is tortured 
by the constant expectation and experience of each new debauch 
in blood to which the man she loves abandons himself. At first 
with a faint instinct of affection he would shield her from antici- 
pating the truth. Banquo is to be murdered, but he will not 
make her party to the crime. “ Be innocent of knowledge, dearest 
chuck, till thou applaud the deed!” It is the mockery of a 
eriminal’s casuistry ; the weft of irony has been cast baok in the 
shuttle by the hand of Fate and is woven again in the woof of their 
intermingled lives. Yet still, whilst he needs her, her woman’s 
heart sustains her nervous system, stretched to its utmost 
tension; but already her presence and voice are losing 
their power to bring him out of the fits of mental aberration to 
which he is a prey ; she lies sleepless beside the delirious mutter- 
ings of “ the terrible dreams that shake him nightly ;” and here, | 
in the close of the scene, the last in which Shakspere shows them oo 





178 The Irvah Monthly. 


us together, in the sudden collapse of her energies we are prepared 
for the next and last vision we obtain of her, a pallid wreck, a 
prey to sonambulistio terrors, rehearsing at hell’s bidding the story 
of her crime, and striving to free her heart of its horrors in a sigh 
that longs to be eternal. It is this woman who loved him who is 
the most piteous of all the victims to Macbeth’s heartless egotism 
and cruelty. Strangest yet truest irony of all, it is she, who 
thought so lightly of their crime as to measure it by ‘‘a little dropof 
water,” who is slain by conscionce—not the besotted criminal, so 
lavish of large words about blood-stained noands that will in- 
carnadine the multitudinous sea. To her delicate sense of smell, 
the “little hand,” that once caressed a child, is for ever tainted 
with the sickening odour of blood, which all the perfumes of Arabia 
will not sweeten ”— not, his, so sonn to become “subdued to what 
it worked in,” the blood in which it paddled and plashed. His 
physical sensibilities become blunted soon : 
**T am in blood 

Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, 

Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”’ 

He leaves her to get further false promises of security from the 
weird sisters, to plunge deeper into crime, to which he makes her 
party, and with which he loads her conscience. Macduft’s wife 
and children are butchered; and the oruelty of it revolts her. In 
her dreams she sees them die, “ The Thane of Fife had a wife, 
where isshe now?” . . . , Macbeth drifts away from her; 
her overwrought nervous system helps him no more; it is the 
mirror in which he sees his own ruin. As he done his armour for 
the last struggle the details of her malady oppress him Jess than 
the details of his mail shirt; the ory of her women at her passing 
stirs him more than the news of her death; such things are out of 
place—she should have died hereafter; there would have been 
a time for such a word; there jis no time for sorrow now nor 
for remembrance; she goes out into the vastness, loveless, and 
alone. 

This is the irony of crime begotten of love. And surely not 
even in the Medea of Euripides has it been told with the power 
with which Shakspere tells it here. But, for the realisation 
on the stage of this side of the tragedy, the chief burthen 
falls on the actress who plays Lady Macbeth. It is easier to play 
the part as a strong terrible woman, devoid of pity and of fear,— 





Some Notes on Macbeth. 179 


an abstraction of murderous cruelty and ambition, than to 
show us the greatness of her crime through the rent of 
what was once a delicate and sensitive woman. What the one 
aspect may gain in strength it loses in its failure to harmonize 
with the central intention of the dramatist. Shakspere did not 
intend that we should classify Lady Macbeth with Regan 
and with Goneril; and the tendency of the great tragic 
actress too often has been, und will be, to fall into this error. To 
terrify and overwhelm the audience by the lurid light of her power, 
is too great a temptation to be easily set aside. And yet, it will 
not be said that less difficulties attend the creation of a Tito 
Melena than of an Iago—of Lady Macbeth than of the terrible 
daughters of King Lear. With none other of his great criminals 
is Shakspere at such pains to show you the better possibilities of 
her nature, to give you hints of her personal beauty, charm of 
manner, and power of loving, even when steeped to the lips in crime, 
than he is in creating this one, the most woful of all. And the 
crowning merit of the Lyceum revival of 1889 was the rendering 
of this element in the acting of Ellen Terry. To one, whose soul 
had thrilled in terror before the acting of Ristori in this part, 
supreme as an attraction in art, the entirely different conception 
and rendering of the character by the Lyceum actress constituted 
the most interesting contrast both of method and effect which it has 
been his lot to witness on the stage. And now, as years have passed, 
and he reads the play once more, with all reverence in his heart 
for the stupendous power of the great Italian artist, his allegiance 
goes by preference to the rendering of the Lyceum actress, which, 
from the first in her ardour of love, and ambition for the man she 
loved, to the last, ‘when, a piteous wreck, she faded from view, lives 
in his memory as the truer embodiment of Shakspere’s supreme 
picture of the ruin of a woman’s soul. 
Montaeu GRIFFIN. 


( 180 ) 


SONNETS OF TRAVEL. 
I. 


A THUNDERSTORM AT BINGEN. 


| BE dying sun had sucked his last red beam 
From the drunk vine, whose long, dishevelled tress 
Leaned as in maudlin madness to caress 
The child-like waves of the great, haunted stream. 
Then through the sudden darkness tore the scream 
And snarl of thunder; and the choking stress 
Made of the midnight all a wilderness, 
Lit by the torches of the lightning’s gleam. 


And lo! o’er slumb’ring village rose the crest 
Of shattered keeps, that in the magic flash 
Assumed the might and mien of ancient power. 
And from their walls by leaguering hosts opprest, 
The mailed and vanquished knights did leap and dash 
Into the Lethe of the storm and hour. 


II. 


Ar THE Rune Facts. 
(Schaffhausen.) 


Ó stately river! winding to the sea, 
Deep-bayed and solemn for the centuries, 
That gaze upon thee with their dreaming eyes 
From shattered keep and empty hostelry ; 
Here in thy riot of lusty infancy, 
Heedless and unrebukéd by the wise, 
Who cast the dark, gray shadows of surmise 
Of what a turbid future stores for thee, 


Ay! leap and dance and curvet o’er these stones, 
That dare to thwart thy progress and thy pride; 
Stately and slow and sclemn shalt thou move, 

Thy high song lowered to the dread monotones 
Of war's loud clangour, or the rippling tide 
Of music breathed from harps of wine and love. 





Sonnets of Travel. 181 


II. 


Aw Oraan REOLTAL. 
(Lucerne.) 


I have beheld Nature and Art at war, 
For on this summer eve the thunder pealed, 
Where the Pilatus threat’ning raised his steeled 
And crested helmet o’er the smoking bar, 
That wreathed its rival column from afar, 
And in its snowy crevices revealed 
The glowing emulation, field on field, . 
Of thick mists, lighted by the lightning’s star. 


And here the mighty building rocked and heaved 
Under the organ’s thunders that awoke 
Beneath the fingers of the Silent One. 

And the rain hissed, as we had fain believed, 
And the pines crashed beneath the lightning’s stroke, 
And the fear-stricken hunters shriek and run. 


IV. 


Tue ‘“‘ Vox Humana.” 


Lucerne). 


We tired of surging cataracts of sound, 
That broke from loosened stop and fretted keys, 
And poured their cadences without surcease, 
And made the mountain thunders peal around. 
When ’mid the hissing of the deluge drowned, 
Lo! from the depths of Alpine crevices, 
Came the faint cry of horror and distress, 
Of lonely chamois-hunter, tempest-bound. 


O great interpreter ! Nature hast thou shamed ; 
We woke, “mid horrors of thy Erebus, 
To that one cry that ever touches us. 
In the vast organ music she has framed, 
Her noblest stops for us are idly stirred, 
Until she wakes the one great human chord. 


P. A. SHEEHAN. 


( 182 ) 


CONTRIBUTIONS TO IRISH BIOGRAPHY.—No. 34. 
Tue Soutn Munster ANTIQUARIAN Society. 
Parr I.—Joun WINDELE. 


WV BATEVER might be said as to the attitude of the Irish 

people as a body in regard to the history and antiquities of 
their country—a point on which, as on most Irish topics, the most 
conflicting opinions exist—it cannot be gainsaid that amongst what 
may be termed the Irish middle classes, a commendably growing 
interest is now being taken in these subjects, as shown by the in- 
creasing membership of the Royal Society of Antiquaries (founded 
in 1849 as the Kilkenny Archsological Society) and the signal 
success of its excursions, as well as by the recent establishment of 
kindred societies in Belfast, Cork, Waterford, Kildare, and 
Limerick, each of which, moreover, issues a well-edited quarterly 
journal of its own. 

At all times, in fact, there have fortunately been at least some 
few persons for whom Irish history and antiquities have possessed 
an irresistible attraction ; and it is not a little remarkable that the 
most eminent amongst them should have been men not Irish 
either in name or descent, to take, for instance, Sir James Ware, 
in the 17th century, General Vallancey in the last, and Dr. 
George Petrie in the present century, whose labours on behalf of 
Irish history and Irish archsology stand so far unsurpassed. 

Several societies too, as well as individuals, have from time to 
time sought with varying success, to preserve and elucidate the 
history, language, musio, literary records, and antiquarian remains 
of Ireland. 

Of the early societies founded for this purpose, two, viz, the 
Royal Irish Academy and the Royal Society of Antiquaries, 
still flourish, and need nofurther mention here. But it may not be 
amiss to chronicle the names of those that, like the South Munster 
Antiquarian Society, are now extinct, which were in their way the 
pioneers of the “ National Literary,” “ Feis Coil,” “ Oireacthas,”’ 
and “Irish Texts” Societies of to-day, not to speak of their 
seniors, the Gaelic Society and the Society for the Preservation of 


i 








Contributions to Irish Biography. 188 


the Irish Language, which are still doing such excellent work. 

In the year 1740 a number of literary gentlemen became 
associated under the name of the Physico-Historical Society; and 
under their patronage were published Dr. Smith’s Histories of 
Waterford, Kerry, and Cork. After this the premier society of 
its class, another one known as the Uoimtional Gaoidilge, or “Irish 
Society,” was founded in Vublin in 1752, for the publication of 
Irish tracts, but failed to issue any. Upon the extinction of this 
society nothing appears to have been done for Irish history and 
antiquities by any collective body, until 1782, or the year follow- 
ing, when Vallancey’s “ Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis”’ having 
been published, that enthusiastic Philo-celt founded the Society of 
Antiquaries. The publication of the “ Collectanea,”’ was the 
means of making the famous Edmund Burke induce Sir John 
Seabright to present ‘Trinity College, Dublin, with the valuable 
Irish manuscripts collected by the celebrated Welsh antiquary, 
Edward Lluyd, included in which are the ** Brehon Law Commen- 
taries,’ the “Book of Leinster,” and other important volumes. 
When the Society of Antiquaries became extinot, the Royal irish 
Academy was founded. But as the Academy devoted its attention 
principally to science, the continued neglect of Irish history and 
antiquities led a few persons to found in 1807, the Gaelic Society 
of Dublin—which produced one volume only. Subsequently to the 
formation of the Gaelic Society another called the Archeological 
Society was founded also in Dublin. In 1818 arose a new 
institution called the Iberno-Celtic Society, under whose auspices 
appeared one volume, viz., O’Reilly’s “Irish Writers,” from which 
the particulars just given have been taken. In 1840 the Irish 
Archsological Society was founded; and in 1845 the Celtio 
Society. These were after atime united; and then died out. To 
the Irish Archsological Society we are indebted for twenty-three; 
and to the Celtic Society for four valuable works, on Irish history, 
antiquities, &o. 

In December, 1851, was founded the ‘Society for the 
Preservation and Publication of the Melodies of Ireland; ” but 
after the publication of a portion of the collection of Irish 
Music, formed by Dr. George Petrie, that society, too, came to 
naught. On St. Patriok’s Day, 1853, was founded the Ossianic 
Society for the Preservation and Publication of Manuscripts in the 
Irish Language, illustrative of the Fenian period of Irish history 


184 The Irish Monthly. 


&c., with literal translations and notes. Seven years later it could 
boast of 746 members; it had published six volumes and had six 
more in preparation; it possessed what might be described as 
branches in New York, Canada, and Australia; yet before another 
year was past the Ossianic Society had ceased to exist. A like brief 
span of existence (1878-86) was ail that the Ossory Archseological 
Society was fated to enjoy, having received its death stroke on the 
departure of its founder, Bishop (now Cardinal) Moran for the 
Australian Mission. Considering the large number and influential 
character of their members, and the eminent authors who wrote 
their books, the collapse of the four Dublin societies last named 
seems all but inexplicable. The various volumes which they issued, 
however, are still highly prized by the Irish antiquary, whilst the 
impetus they gave to Irish archwological studies continues to be 
felt ; and we have yet happily amongst us three at least of their 
most active and efficient members who might be said, in a gepge, 
to still carry on their work, viz., Sir John T. Gilbert, LL.D., Dr. 
Sigerson, and Mr. Standish Hayes O’Grady. 

The present Cork Archsological Society, too, is, to a great 
extent, continuing the work of the South Munster Society. But 
never perhaps before or since was there such an earnest and devoted 
band of Irish antiquaries as this little society formed, numbering 
hardly more than a dozen members in all, priests, parsons, and 
professional men, mostly of mature age, who, at a period when 
neither railways nor bicycles were available, thought it no toil or 
trouble to wend their way afoot, often over considerable distances, 
in order to visit and explore some round tower, ancient mound, 
Druid altar, Ogham stone, ruined church, or other antiquarian relic 
of which there are still so many notable specimens remaining in 
Cork and the adjacent counties. 

The South Munster Antiquarian Society appears to have had 
no fixed rules, nor to have kept any formal record of its proceed- 
ings; and it is only from out-of-the-way sources that we can now 
catch glimpses of its antiquarian rambles and researches to which 
were due the valuable topographical books and pamphlets, now 
getting very scarce, of which so large a proportion of its members 
were (as will be seen) the authors. 

The mere enumeration of their names—John Windele, Richard 
Sainthill, Richard Brash, William Hackett, Abraham Abell, 
Francis Jennings, William Kelleher, William Willes, Rev. M. 





Contributions to Irish Biography. 185 


Horgan, Rev. R. Smiddy, Rev. Justin M‘Carthy (brother of the 
late Bishop of Cloyne), Rev. D. Coleman, Rev. Dominick Murphy, 
the Rev. Messrs. Bolster, Jones, Rogers, and Lawless—will 
show that they were at least worthy contemporaries of the 
remarkable and better known men of whom Cork city and 
county were so prolific in the first half of the present century, such 
as Crofton Croker, “the Father of Irish folklore,” Dr. Maginn, 
Maclise, and “ Father Prout ;” John Lindsay, the Numismatist, 
Richard Dowden, the botanist, North Ludlow Beamish, the 
biographer, J. J. Callanan, Fergus O’Connor, Dan Callaghan, the 
merchant prince, Thomas Davis, Daniel Owen Madden, O’ Neill 
Daunt, Michael Joseph Barry, John Francis Maguire, Rev. Pierce 
Drew, Rev. Samuel Hayman, Dr. Caulfield, John George 
MoVarthy, Count Murphy, and many more; and when Cork counted 
amongst her adopted citizens Father Mathew, James Roche, Owen 
Connellan, and Sir Robert Kane. | 

But, however deserving of a biographical sketch each of the 
South Munster antiquaries may have been, the requisite materials, 
save in a few instances, are not now to be obtained; and are none 
too abundant in regard to Windele, Brash, Sainthill, Lindsay, 
Hackett, Fathers Horgan and Smiddy, to brief notices of whom the 
present paper is consequently confined. 

The ablest, and beyond question the most enthusiastic archa- 
ologist amongst them was JoHN WINDELE, from a copy of whose 
obituary notice, kindly lent by his grandson, the Rev. Mark 
Leonard, U.C., Ballincollig, Cork, the subjoined particulars 
relative to his life and antiquarian work are chiefly derived. 

John Windele was born at Cork in 1801. He belonged toa 
Kerry family, who spelt their name Windle, and though long 
settled in Ireland, seem to have originally come from England. 
Early in life Windele showed an intense love for antiquarian 
pursuits. Whilst yet a boy he visited all the ancient remains 
within his reach, such as old abbeys, churches, castles, &c., making 
sketches of all that impressed him in this way; and when grown 
to manhood his interest in, and his study of the history, language, 
literature and arts of his native land became the ruling passion of 
his life. His first published paper is said to be that, which under 
tha curious pseudonym of “ Trismagistus MacSlatt ” he contributed 
to“ Bolster’s Cork Magazine,’’* of which he was editor. His con- 

“Ita first number was issued in February, 1826, and its last in March 1830. 

Vou. xxvi. No. 298, 14 , 





186 The Trish Monthly 


nection with thatjournal led Windeleto form theacquaintanoe of such 
kindred souls as Abraham Abell, William Willes, Father Horgan, 
of Blarney, Father Prout, of Glenville, and others, who made 
Irish archeology their special study. It was their custom to make 
excursions through the county, sketching its military and ecole- 
tiastical ruins, cromlechs, pillar-stones, stone-circles, and round 
towers, and excavating its tumuli and raths, &c. With such 
congenial companions Windele was in his element; and, long after 
these his early associates had passed away, he still continued their 
work with unabated ardour and enthusiasm. 

His favourite pursuit, however, was Ogham stone-hunting. 
For him these mysterious memorials of early Irish civilization had 
an indescribable charm. Many existing Ogham stones were 
discovered by him, and many saved from destruction by their 
removal to his residence, where they formed what he termed his 
“ megalithic library.” His ardour in this pursuit was astonishing. 
The smallest hint sent him off in search of new discoveries, no 
matter how remote or inaccessible the spot where they were said 
to exist. Oftentimes the supposed Oghams proved to be nothing 
more than weather-marks or plouzh-soratches; but these dis- 
appointments did not daunt him in the least; and not unfrequently 
they led to the unexpected discovery of a stone-circle, cromlech, 
or other object of antiquarian interest. The many thick quarto 
volumes of sketches and notes which he formed attest the extent 
of his labours in this direction. 

A good Gaelic scholar, he collected a considerable number of 
Irish manuscripts; and was a constant patron of the Irish scribes, 
tken pretty numerous, for whom he further obtained employment, 
by inducing his friends to get them to transcribe the ancient Irish 
manuscripts of which a much larger number existed in his time than 
now. In 1839 Windele published his best knownand most important 
book, “ Historical and Descriptive Notices of the City of Cork and 
its Vicinity—Gougane Barra, Glengariff, and Killarney,” of 
which three further editions were issued in 1842, 1846, and 1849, 
and an edition, 1848, restricted to Cove and Cork Harbour, edited 
by the late Dr. Scott, of Queenstown, with geological and meteor- 
ological notes from his pen. The reliable information and 
antiquarian lore to be found in this “ South of Ireland Guide,”’ 
by Windele, render it still a valuable possession; whilst it forms the 
ground work of all subsequently issued Oork Guide-books. 











Contributions to Irish Biography. 187 


In 1860 he edited and issued, but only for private circulation, 
**Caher Conri,” which will be referred to more fully later on. 

Windele was also a contributor to the Dublin Penny Journal, 
in its brief day the great repertory of Irish antiquarian and 
topographical information. To the Uvster Journal (old series) 
he contributed the following papers—‘ Present Extent of the 
Irish Language ” (vol. v., No. 19, 1857); ‘‘ Caher Conn, Co. 
Kerry ” (vol. viii., No. 30, 1860) ; *‘ Ancient Irish Gold ” (vol. ix., 
No. 36, 1861); and ‘‘ Ancient Irish Gold and its Origin”’ (vol. 
ix., No. 35, 1861). 

He was likewise a contributor to the Journal of the Kilkenny 
Archeological Society. 

Of the now defunct Cork Cuverian Society he was a member 
from the beginning; and its records contained many valuable 
papers by him. He wrote the section on Ogham stones in Mr. 
and Mrs, Hall’s “Ireland and its Scenery ;” and up to the time 
of his death he was engaged in editing a volume for the Ossianic 
Society, “ Agallam-Na-Seanoiside,” or, ‘The Dialogue of the 
Sages,” an Historical work in prose and poetry, full of rare 
information on the achievements of the Fianna Éirionn, copied 
from the fourteenth century manuscript, known as “ The Book of 
Lismore.”” Owing to the break-up of the Ossianic Society this 
volume was never published ; but in its fifth volume issued in 1860, 
the editor, Professor Owen Connellan, then of the Queen’s College, 
Cork, speaks of the Ossianic Society as being indebted for that 
volume to John Windele, so much help did he render in its 
production. 

Independent of his personal contributions to Irish antiquarian 
literature, Windele was unsparing in his efforts to afford informa- 
tion to those seeking it at his hands. To every student or writer 
interested in Irish topography or archzology, his valuable library 
and MSS., his notes and drawings, were freely accessible. The 
important services he rendered in this way were often availed of 
in print without acknowledgment, but being one of the most 
unselfish of men he cared little abcut that; his great passion being 
to spread abroad a taste for the cultivation of the ancient literature 
and archeology of Ireland. 

In person Mr. Windele was under the middle height, but 
strongly built. He was a famous pedestrian, thinking nothing, 
when in his prime, of walking thirty or forty miles a day, whilst 


us —I—HER———Hi El. 


188 : The Irish Monthly. 


out on his favourite antiquarian rambles. 

For many years he held a position in the Sheriff’s Office, Cork, 
which yielded him a moderate income. His death, resulting from 
paralysis, took place at his residence Blair’s Hill, Cork, on the 
28th of August, 1865. Over his remains in the Mathew Cemetery, 
his fellow citizens erected a massive Celtic cross, which bears the 
sole inscription “ John Windele.” 

In a letter to Mr. Daniel MacCarthy (Glas.)* dated March 
27, 1848, Windele makes tke following interesting reference to his 
Ogham researches :—“ Your friend, Dr. Graves, has sent down a 
young man here to copy all our Oghams. I do not complain that he 
has sent him into my preserves—preserves wrought by me at much 
labour and expense. But I would have preferred that his very 
laudable desire to investigate this, so long-neglected department of 
our antiquities, was directed towards those portions of Ireland which 
had no labourers to work its fallow fields. However, I do really so 
love our national antiquities that I will not grieve that so ableand 
zealous a gentleman as the Doctor has taken this matter in hand, 
although his so doing must necessarily clash with my special 
operations. I understand he read a paper in June last to the 
Royal Irish Academy on Oghams.,”’ 

The Dr. Graves alluded to in this letter is evidently the present 
Protestant Bishop of Limerick, then a T.C.D. Professor, who is 
now generally considered to be the greatest living authority on 
Oghams, but whose long-promised book on this recondite subject 
has not yet appeared ; whilst the “ young man” he sent down to 
Cork, was doubtless, the Richard Hitchcock, a native of Kerry, a 
most promising Irish archwologist, who died in 1856, at the early 
age of 31, of whom a brief memoir appears on page 54, of Brash’s 
é Ogham Inscribed Monuments of the Gaidhil,” 1879. f 

The latter work might in a sense well be regarded as a monu- 
ment to John Windele, from the frequent and honourable mention 
of his name throughout its pages. On page 15, the author 
designates Windele as “ The Father of Ogham Discovery in the 
South of Ireland.” 


* See a biographical sketch of this distinguished Irishman in our Number 
for August, 1897 (vol. xxv.) 

t The late Sir Samuel Ferguson, it will be remembered, also published a work 
on Ogham I[nacriptions (Edinburgh, 1887,) on which subject scarcely second as an 
authority is a Co. Cork priest, the Rev. E. Barry, P.P., Rathcormac. The latest 
writer on Oghama is Mr. RE. S. A, Macalister, London, whose ‘‘ Studfes in Irish 

phy, Part L.,” is of recent issue. 


He knospeth best. 189 


Windele’s MSS. were, on his death, purchased by the Royal 
Irish Academy, Dublin; they form in all 170 vols., of which 42 
vols. are wholly in the Irish language". Portions of his topo- 
graphical papers (copied thence) are now being published in rather 
haphazard fashion in the Cork Archeological Journal; but without 
the slighteet introductory information having been afforded as to 
their author, the talented, devoted, and patriotic Corkman and 


antiquary, John Windele.t 
JAMES CoLEMAN. 


HE KNOWETH BEST. 


“070! no!” Loried. “I will not have that cross— 
‘‘ Tis heavy, and hard, and bare. 
‘‘ Give me a rose, a ring, a pearl whose gloss 
“ Light makes more fair,” 


Out of my life His gifts I flung away, 
Because I would not get 

The thing I asked for, as I knelt to pray 
With lips tight set. 


And reckless down a rosy slope I went, 
From thraldom free; 

The hours that made my little day are spent, 
And night meets me. 


Into its ebon darkness, Lord, I go. 
Oh, my lost prayer ! 

I searched my heart and soul for you, and lo! 
A cross was there. 


Gently and lovingly on my shoulder laid 
By Hand Divine, 
He sayeth: “ Best for thee; be not afraid— 


‘© A Cross was mine.” 
Mary JOSEPHINE ENRIGHT, 


* Vide “ Cork Journal,” Vol. II., page 118. 


+ To the Kilkenny Archeological Journal his contributions were :—Vol I. (1849 
page 142, ‘‘ Ogam Inscriptions ’’ ; page 159, “ Ancient Irish Watermills’’ ; pages 
307 and 317, ‘‘Age of Ogam Writers”; page 328, “ Ring Money in Ancient 
Ireland.” Vol. II. (1852) page 250, ‘‘ The Ancient Cemetery at Ballymacann, 
Co. Cork.” Voi. III. (1854) page 161, “ Runic (Crosses in the Isle of Man ”; page 
229, Ogams at Rathdrum.” Vol. IV. (1856) page 196, “ Round Tower of Ardrum 
and ita Siege in 1642’’; and page 370, “ The Book of MacCarthy Reagh.”’ 

A son of Mr. Windele, now in California, and three daughters, Mrs. Leonard, 
Mra, Killen, and Mrs, MacDonnell, still survive. 


( 190 ) 


THROUGH THE DARK NIGHT. 
or, 


THIRTY YEARS AGO. 


CuaPigR XXX |. 
ANOTHER WARNING. 


T' HE Moores left Kingstown for their country residence; Miss 

Butler married, and went on the oontinent; and Philip 
Moore s regiment was stationed in Dublin, to assist in re-establish- 
ing the loyalty due to her Majesty. Vincent’s instinct was to 
ask people to his house; he could not be sufficiently hospitable to 
his wife’s cousin. Soa good many of Philip Moore’s idle hours 
were spent at Mr. Talbot’s pleasant abode, where there was usually 
a nice girl or two; a very excellent lunch at twoo’clock, and most 
agreeable suppers. 

The harvest wore into October. Lizzie Lynch still kept vigils 
for her lover, and was more than ever an object of attention to 
Big Bill, who made tender advances whenever he had an 
opportunity, and made a close inspection of the windows several 
times a day. 

The sweet voice of the fresh country girl and her modest 
bearing had awakened vague ideas of womanly beauty and the 
charms of domestic life in the large head of the policeman, and it 
was not pleasant to see Corney O’ Drien, theattorney’sclerk, walking 
by her side with rather the air of a lord and master. He, naturally 
enough, devoted some of his time to watching the movements of 
his rival, an occupation that day by day became more interesting ; 
and he at length discovered that supervision of the young attorney, 
who spent his money royally, might also be productive of fruit. 

One morning Lizzie was transacting some business at tke hall 
door, when a tall woman approached with a few cards of lace 
edging in her hands. The girl started, for she recognized her old 

of coat. 


Through the. Dark Night. 191 


“ Pretead to be buying,” said the woman, who had the hood 
pulled over her face. 

Lizzie mechanically took the cards in her hands. 

é“ Ye are watched, and the house is watched,” said the woman. 
“ Boon more than Big Bill will know where your master and your 
sweetheart goes of nights.” 

é Where they go of nights ?”’ repeated Lizzie. 

é“ Yes, where they go of nights. Big Bill followed them in 
disguise. I set him astray once, the hell-hound. Tell “nm to 
quit the town, for the spies are after ’um.”’ 

“ Are you sure of what you say?” asked Lasrsie, growing 
pale. 

‘‘Sure an’ certain there’saspy out; one time he’s a carpenter ; 
another he’s a printer. He’ll hit home when he can, but he hasn't 
proof enough yet to transport them. He knows the horse ye have 
belongs to a chief. I pretends to be drunk, an’ I hears many 
things. Buy a couple of yards, miss, to help a poor woman.” 

A decent-looking man passed by, and gave a scrutinizing 
glance at the two women. 

‘‘That’s one of “um,” said Lizzie’s friend, rapidly. ‘I tell ye 
the house is watched well. Ye wouldn’t pass so long only for 
the officers come here. Tell "um to look sharp, for they'll be 
tracked at night. Sixpence for that much, miss; “tig well worth 
it.” 

She took the money the girl handed her and walked quietly 
down the street. 

Lizzie, in fear and trembling, told Corney of the new warning, 
and had some difficulty in restraining that youth’s impetuous 
desire to inflict summary chastisement upon Big Bill without any 
further delay. Corney told his master of the supposed surveillance, 
and they both considered it wise to be additionally cautious in 
their movements, and attended to the business of the office with a 
praiseworthy show of diligence. 

As a natural consequence of his erratic habits, Vincent’s 
business was gradually deolining. 

Mr. Talbot had had a severe attack of rheumatism, and was 
gone to the German spas for the benefit of his health. During 
the absence of that eagle-eyed limb of the law things had fallen 
into greater confusion. 

Vincent’s ardent nature was completely carried away by 


192 The Irish Monthly. 


patriotic enthusiasm. All perscnal aims and desires were merged 

in one wild ambition to establish the liberty of his country. He 
was not of a disposition to project himself far into the future, so 
the difficulty of accomplishing his object, and of keeping his 
country free, if he succeeded in wresting her out of the grasp of 
the higher powers, did not occur to him in any degree that might 
tend to moderate his ardour. 


CHApPrEg XXXVII. 
THE STRUGGLE. 


The lane at the back of Vincent Talbot’s house led on through 
the wilderness of shattered tenements until it came to the river, 
where the deep waters murmured sullenly as if sick of the many 
horrid secrets hidden in their bosom. Corney O’Brien walked 
rapidly along the bank, with papers appertaining to the Fenian 
conspiracy concealed in his breast. He approached a sort of quay 
near the back of the house, when a tall man in a frieze coat 
emerged from the shadow and followed him. Corney quickened 
his steps; so did his pursuer. In a few strides he reached his 
side, and laid his hand on his shoulder. Corney shook him off, 
and turned on him. | 

“ No go, my fine fellow,” said the man. ‘ You're caught at 
last.” 

He seized him in his powerful grasp, and in a moment Corney 
recognized his enemy, Big Bill, the policeman. 

“You vagabond spy,’ he cried, “ let me go, or I’ll have your 
hfe.”’ 

é“ I'll put you where you won't harm yourself or anyone else, 
my roving blade,’’ answered Big Bill ; “ better for you come quietly, 
I have only to signal for help.” 

Corney declined to submit quietly to his fate, he had papers on 
his person that would criminate his master as well as many others ; 
that consciousness gave him more than his wonted strength, he 
struggled violently with his assailant, but the policeman held him 
like a vice and all his efforts to free himself were unavailing. 

A feeling of despair was rushing over him when suddenly a 
woman ran along the bank, and, with the agility of a wild cat, 


Through the Dark Night. 193 


sprang upcn the back of Big Bill and cloged both her hands upon 
his neck, 

“ You devil, do you want to chcke me?” he shouted in a 
strangled voice. 

“ Let. go your hould, you hell-hound,”’ she cried, “let go your 
hould.” 

To save himself from strangulation he took one hand off 
Corney, tore the woman’s fingers apart and dealt her a blow that 
knocked her to the earth, her head coming against the curb stone. 
Corney took advantage of his partial liberation, thrust his free 
hand into his pocket, pulled out a revolver and with the end of it 
hit his enemy a crashing blow upon the temple: his hold relaxed, 
Corney fled among the houses, while Big Bill staggered, fell head- 
foremost over the edge of the quay, and in a moment more the 
black waters closed silently above him. 

Next day the story of the affray was known through the city. 
The woman had been taken insensible to the hospital, and little 
hopes were entertained of her recovery. A girl deposed that she had 
witnessed the struggle between two men and the woman from a 
back window in her house, and saw one fall into the river. Big 
Bill was missing, the waters were dragged, and stiff and stark his 
body was drawn up, covered with mud and decaying weeds, a 
loathsome specimen of humanity. 

With a haggard face Corney O’Brien listened to the details. 

“Im a murderer,’ he said to himself. ‘I sent him 
unprepared before his God, and he only doing his duty.” 

Though greatly shocked at the unhappy circumstances, Vincent 
tried to cheer him up. 

“Tt was in self-defence,” he said. “He was guiltless of 
murder before God or man, and, had he not defended himself, they 
would all be transported.” 

“ And that unfortunate creature came to her death saving me,” 
continued Corney. ‘I was taken but for her. Oh, Mr. Vincent, 
I’m in dread nothing but trouble and sin will come of what 
we're up to.” 

Before evening it was a confirmed fact that Big Bill, the 
policeman, was murdered by a Fenian and thrown into the river. 
He had been at a Fenian meeting that night disguised as a 
countryman ; he must have been recognised; he was followed and 
barbarously assailed. 





194 The Irish Monthly. 


But it was curious how only one assassin appeared, and why 
the unfortunate woman was connected with it. If she only 
recovered consciousness enough to give some information, that 
would throw light on the mystery. A reward was offered for the 
apprehension of the murderer, and the sick bed of Corney’s 
preserver was watched by persons in authority waiting to take 
down her deposition. 

Days wore away into weeks, and still she lay quietly on her 
bed, following the movements of her attendants with eyes that 
seemed unnaturally large in her wasted face. She was not so 
unconscious as she seemed. 

é“ I won't speak,” she thought to herself. ‘I might say more 
than I ought. I won’t speak. Thank God, Big Bill is done 
for.” 

The unwonted peace and quiet were gradually influencing the 
hot heart of the outcast. Gentle nuns, with pure pale faces, on 
which no evil passion had ever left a trace, ministered to her with 
as much tenderness as if she were one of God’s most faithful 
servants. And soft words of divine meaning sank slowly into her 
consciousness. 

“ Jesus and Magdalen,” she murmured, when the nun had 
ceased to read of her whose burning love atoned for her iniquities. 
“ Jesus and Magdalen, Magdalen a sinner like myself.” 

“ You are sensible at last,” whispered the nun, bending over 
her. | 

“ Bensible,” repeated the woman, turning her wounded head 
restlessly. ‘I was never sensible. Wild an’ wicked; nothing 
but drink and damnation. But I saved him for her.” 

‘Saved whom P” asked the nun. 

“ She fed and clothed me,” continued the woman, lifting her 
blazing eyes; ‘an’ betther, she gave me the kind word. ’T'was 
long since I heard them—long, long.” 

A priest was in the next ward, attending a dying man. He 
had just performed the last sacred rites for him when the nun 
summoned him to the woman’s bedside. He sat beside her with 
his head bent upon his hand, and after a while she yielded to the 
divine power of his words, and poured the story of her life into his 
ears—the old story of betrayed trust, of grief and shame, and 
uncontrolled passions. Great tears rolled down her hollow cheeks 
as he gave her absolution, and the nun, who knelt at little distance , 


Through the Dark Night. 195 


lifted her soul in thanksgiving that another poor prodigal had 
come back to the feet of God. 

Immediately after her mind began to wander; broken 
thoughts of the past fitted through her brain, and she plucked at 
the coverlet with her/long thin fingers. 

“ Yes, I am sorry, your reverence, sorry, sorry,” she murmured. 
“I thought to end it often in the river—but I was afraid—afraid 
to die—I got enough of hell—Big Bill went down, down. I 
heard the splash—the spy—but I saved Aim; Jesus and Magdalen 
—I would wash His feet in my tears, too, if I saw Him—they say 
I'll see Him soon. DÍ] never part with her cloak again—never— 
Jesus and Magdalen.’’ Her voice fell away into indistinot tones ; 
she held the crucifix to her breast and fell asleep ; when the nurse 
came to her in the morning, she was dead. 


CHAPTER XXX V III. . 
AWAKENING. 


There was a sense of relief mingled with Corney O’Brien’s 
emotions when he heard of the death of his rescuer. Lizzie was 
confident she would not betray him; still the consciousness that it 
was possible was rather disturbing. In Big Bill’s lodgings were 
papers which proved that he had found a good deal of infor- 
mation, and was following up his clues diligently, but, 
unfortunately for the authorities, there was nothing sufficiently 
definite in them, and they ouly confirmed suspicions that the 
Fenian ghost, \.hich they hopefully supposed had been laid for 
all time, was walking the world again with unpleasant vigour. 

In the meantime society enjoyed itself, laughing and dancing 
the happy hours away, eating, drinking, and making merry, as 
was the agreeable advice of a heathen philosopher. Mrs. Vincent 
Talbot had additional impetus given to her capacity for enjoyment 
by the presence of her old lover who had jilted her, and her 
present aim was to make him see and feel her power. She 
entirely succeeded, and Philip Moore was again agitated by an 
emotion which is popularly called love. There is an old saying, 
“ It is easy to kindle a half-burat sod.” The truth of the saw was 


Fa 





196 The Irish Monthly. 


proved in his case, and Ethna’s increased beauty, witty audacious- 
ness, and improved surroundings, fanned his heart into a new 
flame. 

Ethna was not of an ethical tendency—she never speculated 
upon causes and effects, nor the consequences of her own actions. 
She had no desire to awaken an unlawful love in the breast of 
Philip Moore; she only wished to make him feel that she was 
worth loving ; and to gratify that morbid feeling she encouraged 
attention, and became a little faster than was natural to her. 

‘You are engaged to me for the next dance,” said Philip 
Moore, coming up to her at a ball given by the military. Ethna 
took his arm, and made some smiling remark to the officer with 
whom she had danced several times. 

é“ What do you mean by this flirtation with every strange man 
you meet ?”’ he said, in a voice of suppressed rage. 

é Flirtation ! ” she answered haughtily. “ How dare you use 
such a word in connection with me?” 

é It is not pleasant to have what we do put into plain words,” 
he said ; “but a woman who goes about without her husband, and 
accepts the attentions of other men, cannot be surprised if she be 
talked about.” 

Philip spoke in a highly moral tone, ignoring the fact that his 
present ambition was to get this married woman, whose flippant 
behaviour he censured, to look with favourable eyes on him, and 
him alone. 

“I don’t care who talks about me,” replied Ethna, with a total 
disregard for truth, forgetting for a moment what a hearty relish 
she had for admiration. 

“ No, I should think not. A woman like you cares for nothing 
but gratifying her insatiable vanity.” 

‘*It is not you who should correct my conduct,” said Ethna ; 
“as long as my husband finds no fault with me, I heed no 
comments.”’ 

“ Your husband !” he laughed, mockingly. “ You do not 
seem to have an extraordinary regard for each other’s mode of 
action, Í must say. You go one way, he goes another—a con- 
venient arrangement, and one you seem to relish. The presence 
of a husband must be a restraint.” 

Ethna tried to withdraw her arm, but he held it tightly. 

“ How dare you speak so to me P” she said, crimson with shame 





y. 


Through the Dark Niyht. 197 


and anger. 

“ Because I love you,” he answered in a passionate whisper ; 
“ because you are driving me mad with jealousy.” 

She pulled her hand away. 

“ My God,” she said, faintly, “ am I so wicked that you should 
say this to me, a married woman ?” 

“ You do not care for your husband,” he answered ; “’tis a 
mockery to pretend it. We wore lovers once; we must be lovers 
again. Take my arm; come where I can speak to you.” 

“ Don't touch me,” she said, pale with horror. ‘I could not 
bear it; let me join my party. It is time to leave.” 

“ You lured me on,” he continued in the same intense voice. 
é You cannot throw me off now. You loved me on the hills of 
Mona. I will kindle the old firein your heart. Ethna, I adore you.” 

His eloquence came to a full stor. A gentleman came up and 
asked Ethna to danee; she took his arm, sought out her party, 
and, as soon as possible, proceeded homewards. When she arrived 
there, she found Vincent sitting at his writing desk, looking over 
papers. 

“ What brought you home so early, Ethna P”’ he said, looking 
at his watch. ‘Only three o’clock. Was it stupid ?”” 

“ No; it was very gay, she replied. “ Why are you not in 
bed Pp”? 

She laid her hand on his shoulder; he turned his head to kiss 
it, and then looked up at her with a smile on his still boyish face. 
She looked at him more earnestly than was her wont. The 
handsome young face had a look of care and a graver expression 
than seemed natural to it. She stood there, robed in costly 
velvet ; her arms and neck flashing with jewels; but her spirit 
was clothed in shame, and she was repeating to herself: “My 
husband here, while another man has been making love to me.” 

She thought to kneel beside him and tell him the whole story 
of her early love, her after vanity, and its horrible consequences; 
but smiled almost simultaneously with the impulse at the tragic 
picture she would present kneeling at her husband’s feet. Those 
who have a sense of humour will see a comic side even ir, the 
tragedy in which they may be chief and real actors. 

“I was not sleepy, wife,” replied Vincent; “I thought I 
might as well stay up till you returned, and I improved the 
shining hours by looking over some papers that require looking 
over.” 





198 The Irish Monthly. 


“T am sorry I did not remain at home also,” said Ethna. 

é You are taking a domestic turn at three o’clock in the 
morning,” replied Vincent with a smile; “don’t you know that 
significant and concise little poem abont the health of his Satanio 
Majesty? Your penitential mood will have vanished by to- 
morrow night.” 

“ Perhaps not; I think I shall remain at home more than I 
have done.” 

“Why should you, dear, when it bores you?’’ said Vincent. 
“I like you to enjoy yourself. J am very proud of my handsome 
wife, and have no tendency to Bluebeardism—though home is a 
safe place to attach one’s self to,” he added with a sigh. 

Vincent had spent several hours that night projecting himself 
into the future, glancing at the past, and looking the present in the 
face; the three-fold study did not exhilarate his spirits, nor was it 
at all calculated to doso. He had begun to despair of the cause in 
which he had embarked ; to despair of its success, its utility, and 
the honesty of itsagents. There could be no doubt but treason sat 
at their councils, and only waited the proper moment to give forth 
fatal utterances ; but what was he todo? Surely not to draw 
back at the first moan’ of the treacherous sea, and let the ship sail 
out a man the less; no, better to go down in.o the great deep than 
prove a recreant. 

It was not for himself he felt, but for his wife and his father ; 
his business was almost gone, Ethna’s fortune was spent, and he 
cvuld not tell how much he was in debt. Vincent’s incapacity for 
managing his monetary affairs was one of the reasons why his 
father was so anxiousto have him married, and more especially 
married to EKthna Moore, in whose prudence and good sense he 
had illimitable trust; but Ethna’s gay career left her little time 
for household calculations. She gave her orders, and when bills 
came in she passed them on to Vincent, and took it for granted 
that they were settled. The young man sat at the desk thinking 
it all out; his had been a happy, comfortable youth; he had 
taken life with joyous thoughtlessness, but its hard realities were 
beginniug to press their unpleasant edges on him now, and awake 
him to the knowledge that it was not all smooth sailing. 

Artix O’Brien, 
(To be continued). 


( 199 ) 


LITTLE PILGRIMS. 


0 LITTLE feet that trample dale and hill-side 
The road is far to go, 

And tiny are the prints you leave behind you, 
In dust and rain and snow. 

Dear little feet! I would the way were shorter, 
But, pray you, hasten on, 

Before grim night shall hide the blue of heaven 
And working days be gone. 


O little hands, a mighty task is waiting! 
And time out-runs you all; 

Take up your portion which must be completed 
Before the burden fall. 

Dear little hands! I would the task were lighter, 
But, pray you, persevere ! 

For it was measured in the angel’s workroom, 
And folded with a tear. 


O little lives that came from distant glories 
To shadows of the earth! 
How like a rainbow, tender and persuasive, 
Through darkness shone your birth ! 
Dear little lives! I would not wish you shorter, 
But, pray you, live aright! 
For God is watching out of stars and sunbeams, 
To call you back to light. 
A. M. Moreay. 


SR. 


( 900 ) 


NEWRY AND ITS LITERARY HISTORY. 


R. F. ©. CROSSLE has printed the address which he 
delivered at the opening of the Free Library of Newry, in 
September, 1897, under the title of “ Notes on the Literary 
History of Newry.” The appearance of this welcome pamphlet 
serves to emphasize the neglect of the literary portion of their 
subject displayed by nearly all Irish local historians. It is 
lamentable to have to admit that this is almost the only genuine 
attempt ever made to treat of the literary associations of an Irish 
town. Cork indeed has had one or two historians who have 
endeavoured to enumerate its literary celebrities; and a very 
useful list of “Belfast Printed Books’’ has been published. As 
far, however, as the other Irish towns are concerned, the average 
reader can hardly be blamed for thinking that they have never 
done anything for literature. Even in the histories of important 
towns like Limerick and Waterford, the literary associations of the 
place are usually summed up in a beggarly paragraph. The Irish 
local historian is generally terribly anxious that not one municipal 
nonentity should be overlooked, but very indifferent indeed as to 
the literary men who may have conferred distinction upon his 
town. There are two histories of Co. Down which, considering 
the number of literary people born in that county, might have 
been made much more interesting to the student of literature than 
they are. 

Dr. Crossle’s address does something to show that one part of 
this county has prominently identified itself with literature. 
Though his record is far from complete, it will astonish the reader. 
The remarkable list of Newry-printed books which he includes is 
highly creditable to the town. There are few other towns in 
Ireland which could show anything like it. Yet even those 
readers who are most surprised at the length of the list may be 
able to add one or two books to it. The present writer is able to 
point to a few publications printed in Newry which are not in Dr. 
Crossle’s list. Should a second edition of this address be called 
for, it might by worth while to include the items which are here 
referred to. It was obviously impossible for Dr. Crossle to exhaust 
such a subject in a lecture, and he might do worse than extend 





Newry and tts Literary History. 201 


his researches and give us the result in a veritable book, It is to 
be hoped that other Irishmen, equally jealous of the reputation of 
their birthplaces, will follow his excellent example. 

In any subsequent edition of this little work, it might be 
advisable to give the complete and correct title of the locally 
printed books. Otherwise it will be difficult to distinguish between 
different works. Thus, it is not easy to say with positiveness that 
the “ Poems on Various Occasions by John Hickie”’ mentioned by 
Dr. Crossle, is the book printed in the same year at Newry, and 
entitled ‘ Parnassian Weeds, or Trifles in Verse, by John Hickie, 
Sergeant in the 61st Foot.” Presumably it is. There are one or 
two other books in Dr. Crossle’s list which are worthy of a little 
more detail than is devoted to them. 

Some of their authors, too, were more notable than appears on 
the surface. John Corry, for example, whose volume of “ Odes 
and Elegies ” is referred to by Dr. Crossle, became in later years 
a well-known writer in England, author of some very useful and 
able works of a historical kind. His volume of poems has one 
curious point about it—its list of subscribers. The names of many 
of them indicate that Corry was not particularly well affected 
towards the Government of his day. His book was printed in 
1797, and the subscribers include Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Henry 
Joy M‘Cracken, Rev. W. Steele Dickson, Rev. James Porter, John 
Hughes, Thomas Storey, Dr. Drennan, Oliver Bond, C. H. Teeling, 
Bartholomew Teeling, Thomas Scott (the linen-bleacher of 
Dromore, who in later times was known as “ Hafis,” and was 
searified by Byron in “ English Bards and Scotch Reviewers ’’) 
and others. At least half a dozen of those named above suffered 
in 798. 

But to come to the omissions among locally printed books: 
these are not very important but are worth mentioning. Earliest 
perhaps is Brownlow Forde’s play “The Miraculous Cure, or the 
Citizen outwitted,” adapted from Cibber, printed by George 
Stephenson in 1771. Forde, who may have been an actor, 
addresses his preface from Newry. Unless I am mistaken, a 
family of this name has been settled near Newry for generations. 
In 1773 “ Some Hints on Planting, by a Planter” was printed in 
the town. It is mentioned in Shirley’s “ Lough Foa Catalogue,” 
as is also ‘“Finn’s Choice, or the Minstrel of the Lee, by 
a Bard of Ulster,” Newry, 1821. Dr. Crossle mentions an 


Von. xxvi. No, 298. 16 


202 . The Irish Monthy. 


edition in 1846 of a “‘ Picturesque Handbook to Carlingford Bay 
and the Watering-places in its Vicinity ;’ but this work had 
appeared in 1840. 

Newry items derived from other sources are “The Expediency 
and Necessity of a Local Legislative Body in Ireland, supported 
by a reference to facts and principles” by William Sharman 
Crawford, Esq. (Newry Examiner office, 1833); “ Poems, Odes, 
Elegies, Songs and Natires’’ (Newry, 1831) by Joseph Carson, 
of Kilpike, near Banbridge ; and “ Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual 
Songe,” by the Rev. Andrew G. Malcolm (Newry, 1811.) 

Dr. Crossle has given a very interesting account of the different 
publications which have been published in Newry. The name of 
James Raleigh Baxter, Editor of Zhe Newry Hzaminer, reminds 
one of the doctor of that name who became the boon companion 
of Carleton, the novelist, and was possibly identical with the 
Newry editor.” 

Of the distinguished men who belonged or belong to Newry, 
Dr. Crossle duly commemorates John O’Hagan, John Kells 
Ingram and his brother, Thomas Dunbar Ingram, William 
Hamilton Maxwell, and even Charlotte Bronte, and Captain 
Mayne Reid, who were connected with Oounty Down, but not 
with Newry itself. 

Dr. Crossle carefully records that the Rev. Charles Wolfe’s 
é“ Burial of Sir John Moore” was first published in the Newry 
Telegraph, and that the poet’s life by Archdeacon Russell appeared 
first in Newry; but one misses among the Newry verse-writers 
the names of Terence MacMahon Hughes, Sarah Parker, and the 
Rev. Thomas H. M. Scott. 

T. M. Hughes, who was born in Newry, on the 27th of 
December, 1812, was at one time a very well-known writer. His 
é“ Revelations of Spain ’’ attracted a good deal of attention in his 
day. He was successively editor of a London comic journal (the 
precursor of Punch) foreign correspondent of Zhe Morning 
Chronicle, and a disappointed poet. His prose is sometimes graphic, 
and a graceful or humourous lyric may occasionally be found in his 


* Our contributor—of whom The Academy, reviewing his ‘Life of James 
Olarence Mangan,” remarked lately that his power of minute, painstaking research 
almost amounts to genius—must allow us to pass over here a paragraph about 
“é the greatcst of Newry men,” and about a certain omission which we are sure Dr. 
Crosale would repair if he had to issue his lecture afresh.—Ed. I, M. 





Newry and tts Literary Htatorv. " 203 


several volumes of verse; but almost all he wrote is spoiled by 
diffuseness. Zhe Atheneum having ridiculed one of his longest 
poems, “The Ocean Flower,” Hughes replied by a fierce satire 
called “The Biliad, or How to Criticise,” in which C. W. Dilke, 
proprietor and editor of The Atheneum, appears as Mr. Bilk—a 
point which would be lost on those who did not know tbat “to 
bilk,”’ from the time of Swift’s “‘ Journal to Stella ” and before it, 
means to cheat, to trick, to swindle. This satire is clever but un- 
convincing. Hughes wrote a good deal for The Belfast Vindicator 
when edited by his cousin, who, most recently of all, has just told, 
after so very many years, the story of his “ Lifein Two Hemi- 
spheres.” He also wrote a little for The Nation. Eventually he 
renounced his early political faith and died an Anti-Repealer in 
1849. 

The Rev. T. H. M. Scott was for many years a clergyman in 
his native town of Newry. He published a long poem in Belfast 
in 1856, and his verse was once a frequent feature in 7he Newry. 
Telegraph. He died a few years ago. 

Sarah Parker was born in Newry in 1824 but was taken to 
Scotland at an early age. She was at one time well known in 
Scotland as “ The Irish Girl ;” and extracts from her two books of 
verse may be found in several Scottish anthologies. She died in 
1880, in very poor circumstances. Her sympathies seem to have 
been strongly Irish. 

Much more might easily be added about the literary associa- 
tions of Newry and County Down. I had lately some corres- 
pondence with a Co. Down man in New Zealand, who is engaged 
upon a history of his native town of Banbridge. We want more of 
this kind of work in Ireland. The history of very many of our 
counties and towns remains unwritten, though the materials 
available are in many cases abundant. 

Davip_J. O’Donocuur. 


( 204 ) 


THE DIVINE ARTISY. 


Fe their own sakes God loves all gracious things. 
He plants the pale sea-lilies far below, 

And lays the garden out, and lines the beds, 

And fences round the solitary paths, 

Where never foot of man shall dare to rest. 

He trains the young gull on the rock to catch 

The sweet wild music of the coming tide, 

Which hearing from afar, she lifts her head, 

And beats against her breast the restless wing, 

Repeating oft a welcome harsh and glad. 

He gathers in its food for the small fish, 

And shows him where to find his briny nest, 

"Neath fifty fathoms of the mighty deep. 

He lights the stars along the evening skies, 

Counting the billions of the Milky Way, 

Which never eye of man hath counted yet. 

For the pale wandering moon He sets sure steps, 

And bids the stars attend her night by night, 

And linger round her paths with the grey clouds. 

He keeps the planets each in his own road, 

Marking the bounds, He bids him pass not hence. 

And always through the forests dim and far, 

He feeds and numbers every tender bird, 

That sits and rocks upon the swaying bough. 

He gives to each the special turn and note, 

And music of its voice—and at the eve, 

And ’mid the silence of the lonely dawn, 

They sing for Him, the little song-birds sing 

And give Him of their sweetest and their best. 

He trains the insect from a tropic wave 

To lift the coral reef, to spread its fringe, 

Building an island ’neath the clear blue skies, 

For palm, for cocoa, and for orange grove; 

There, while the waves, upon a night in May, 

Kept pulsing round the fronded, graceful palm, 

How good it were to linger and to dream, 

As ever glancing past, the strange bright birds 

Still uttered some low note of love or joy, 


SR. 


Doings in the Dale. 205 


And the green parrot, and the mocking bird, 
Made mimic concert in the orange grove— 
. The full moon sifting down her silver eands 

O’er all. 

’T were good to linger there in May, 
And drinking in the beauty half divine 
Of that fair land to feel how beautiful 
Is God, how fair the meadows where He walks, 
Which never fairest scene, however fair, 
Foreshadowed here. 

From Heaven shall we not see 
His coral isles, His palms, His birds, His groves ? 
God’s Hand is sure; no unremembering, 
Brief moment mars the Master’s perfect work. 


Aricg Esmonvxe. 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 
Cuarprer VIIL.. 
BOYS AND BIRDS. 


They idle down the traffic lands, 
And loiter thro’ the woods with spring ; 
To them the glory of the earth 


Is but to hear a bluebird sing. 
Buiies VaRMAN. 


“ Well, if you ask me,” George was saying—a most comical 
expression of gloom upon his ruddy face—“if you ask me, I 
should say that, as a family, we are about done for.” 

The lads were “ nesting” in the old spinny that lay on the 
east side of the park, and they had broken up into little groups of 
two or three. Their method of nesting was not to take eggs— 
saving now and then a single specimen to add to their unique 
collection—but to note the position of nests and the kind of birds 
that were building or sitting, and to take measures for their 
protection. 

“There are societies for the prevention of pretty nearly every- — 
thing now-a-days,” began Harry, slowly extricating his hand 


206 . The Irish Monthly. 


from a thorny brake where there ought to have been a wren’s 
nest—“ why can’t they start one for the protection of families 
from the invasion of ——”’ 

é“ Millionaires !’’—-interrupted Lance. 

“I was going to say bores,” returned Harry, “ but I’m glad I 
didn’t.” 

“ Might have done,” Lance said, as he prepared to climb a 
tree. “Give us a shove, somebody.”’ 

The necessary shove being given, Lance, the light weight 
whose duty (and pleasure) it was to do the climbing on these 
occasions, passed from height to height and from bough to 
bough on an airy journey of inspection. This particular elm 
was a famous one, and the boys had named it the “ Hostel” on 
account of the many families of birds to which it gave an annual 
shelter. Lance shouted information from time to time, but very 
little of it reached the ears of George and Harry. 

“ And, as time goes on, it'll be worse,” George proceeded, 
leaning back against the trunk of the tree in order to think the 
matter out comfortably. ‘ ‘This beastly house-warming opens up 
possibilities of a kind that make one shudder.” 

‘‘ Got to make the best of it, I reckon,” Harry rejoined with a 
laugh ; “ and perhaps it won't be so bad as it seems.” 

George was the family sage—a year younger than Harry, but 
as steady and as thoughtful as his eldest brother Hilary. Of 
Harry—called Hal and Hally indiscriminately—his father had 
onoe said that his second son thought it the whole duty. of a boy 
to laugh. 

“It’s the meeting of those young beggars from Hardlow one 
funks most,” George went on. “We're bound to have a row 
sooner or later.”’ 

é Don't see that,” said Harry, looking at his brother with some 
surprise. 

George blushed a little and was silent. Heand Lance had a 
secret that they had agreed toshare with nobody. They were the 
two Ridingdales who had been insulted by Mr. Kittleshot’s 
grandsons in Miss Rippell’sshop. Lance, perhaps because he was 
the younger, had been addressed by Horace Kittleshot; but 
George had resented the wounding words more than his brother 
had done. However, on their way home from Miss Rippell’s they 
had both solemnly resolved that they would never make the 


Doings in the Dale. 207 — 


remotest reference to the incident in the hearing of any member 
of their family, or of any other person whatever. George was 
sorry for the remark he had just made to Harry. 

“ Daresay you're right, Hal. I shan’t row if they don’t, and 
anyhow—— ” 

“ Look out, George, if you don’t want to be brained by 
Lance’s clogs!” 

The younger lad was coming down with alarming swiftness. 
Reaching the ground very much out of breath, he began to pour 
out astore of delightful information. The Hostel was fuller than 
ever. My lady thrush was sitting and seemed inclined to show 
fight. There was the usual robin. And if a blackcap wasn’t on 
the build, Lance added when at length he reached the end of a 
long catalogue of wonders, he was prepared to eat his own hat. 

“Which is an article you don’t possess, Master Lanny,” 
remarked George. 

“Well, my own blue cap, then. But, I say, what's the time P”” 

é“ Haven’t a notion,” said Harry. “ Let's find the watchman.” 

Hilary answered to many names, the commonest, perhaps, 
being “ Hilly.” (“ Most appropriate for a tall chap like you,” 
Harry had told him; whereupon Hilary had immediately given 
his brother the title of Hally. To this, asthe boy was a musician, 
was sometimes added “‘ Sir Charles.’’) But “ Mentor” and “ Time- 
keeper ” were also acknowledged by the big brother—the only one 
of the boys who owned a watch. | 

So a great ory of “ Hilly, Hally, Hilly-ho!” now rang through 
the wood, and very soon—the cry having been responded to with 
an inversion of vowel sounds— Hilary and the rest showed them- 
selves. | 

“Tsay, you fellows,” exclaimed Hilary, “it's awfully late! 
Only just time to get back by running! And you know Mr. K. 
is lunching with us ?”’ 

It is not at all easy to keep up a connected conversation when 
you are running at full speed; but very soon the air was filled 
with interjectionary remarks, one of which, emitted by Harry, 
sounded most unpleasantly like “ Mr. K. be blowed.” 

é Look a little blowed yourself,” remarked Hilly to Hally, as 
the latter after much exertion managed to cateh up to his longer- 
legged brother. 

“Enough wind left—to blow away—your chaff,” panted 


aVS Lhe ineh Monta, 


Hally. “But tell us, Hilly—Is Croesus coming to lunch with 
us every day ?”’ 

“ Can't say,” answered Hilary. ‘Looks likeit. Hold on!” 
—looking at his watch—“ It’s all right! No need to hurry !” 

As Hilly and Hally slackened speed, seven other boys joined 
them—five younger Ridingdales, Willie Murrington, their foster- 
brother, and Algernon Bhutleigh, the son of the absconding bank 
manager. Willie was about the same age as Lance, and Algernon 
almost a year older. 

Lanoe, the ever voluble, ready of speech and musical of voice, 
and laden with all the wisdom of his years (which were not quite 
thirteen) was laying down the law in regard to the person he 
always referred to as “ Mr. K.” 

“ It's not the man I object to so much; it’s the catechism he 
puts one through. It’s getting to be as regular as—as—”’ 

é“ Friday’s fish,”’ suggested George. 

‘Thanks, George, you’ve hitit. He's been dodging about the 
place for a month or so, off and on, and he’s very nearly mastered 
Hilary’s name. Oh, yes, and he knows poor Sweetie now, when 
he sees him. I am going to ask father to let us all wear dog- 
collars with our names on them. It gets monotonous when you're 
called by a new name every twenty minutes. ‘So you're Mr, 
Ridingdale’s adopted son, are you P ’—he asked me the day before 
yesterday. Fancy that, you know! And Willie himself he always 
calls George.” 

é“ That,” said the sedate George with great gravity, “is 
unpardonable.” 

Willie Murrington, a pale-faced lad with a pitiable history, 
was certainly as unlike the cherry-cheeked Ridingdales as a boy 
could well be. In other respects, however, he was not unworthy of the 
house that had adopted him. Indeed his devotion to his foster- 
parents had developed into something like worship, showing itself 
sometimes in ways that caused no little merriment in a family that 
believed far more in smiles than tears. Thus, the Squire who had 
had a somewhat lonely but very bookish boyhood, was in the 
frequent habit of quoting scraps of verse and prose—greatly to 
the (pretended) annoyance of his friend the Colonel. His 
quotations were not uncommonly used with an applied meaning, 
and indeed very often uttered in orderto provoke a little fun; but 
Willie Murrington waited for them and devoured them as the 


Doinge sn the Dale. 209 


blackbird waits for and devours the first ripe strawberry. On his 
own account, too, Willie had begun to store his young mind with 
lines of poetry aud sounding sentences of prose, and since his 
foster-father had patted him on the head and declared that he was 
beginning to show “ quite a pretty trick of quotation,”’ the boy had 
read and remembered more than ever. He did not talk much, for 
the simple reason that it was a perfect joy to him to listen to his 
foster-brothers’ chatter—as the smile that now so often lit up his 
otherwise sad face plainly showed. 

“ Well,” remarked Hilary, as Lance showed signs of fatigue, 
é“ I must say that I sympathise with Croesus. It’s all very easy 
for us who know one another so well; but fancy a poor old gentle- 
man introduced into the society of sixteen brats—— ” 

‘Including Hilly,” ejaculated Lance—moving out of his 
brother’s reach. 

“Shut up, Lanny! I say, fancy a man trying to remember 
sixteen names and faces all atonce. Why, even Miss Rippell trips 
occasionally, and after my father, and perhaps our friend Willie 
yonder, she has the most amazing memory of any person I know.” 

Willie’s blushes did not conceal the pleasure he received from 
Hilary’s praise, for, as Lance remarked, sotto voce, ‘ Praise from 
Sir Hilary Ridingdale was praise indeed.” 

They were nearing the Hall now, and Willie’s quick eye saw 
the Squire standing in the entrance. 

é“ There's father!” he exclaimed, burning for the opportunity 

of “ lugging im ” (as Lance put it) a parting quotation. “There he 
is, as a modern poet puts it—* Smiling at the door with April, 
saying the cagabonds are come.’”’ 

Whereupon Willie was seized by strong hands and haled along 
at a double trot until the hall-door was reached, when he was made 
to repeat his quotation to the Squire. 

é Just to take the conceit out of the others, Willie, you shall 
have an extra half-holiday this afternoon,” said Mr. Ridingdale 
when he had ceased laughing. 

é And we, father P” cried a chorus of anxious voices. 

“ And you for making him repeat it.” 

The hurrahs were so loud that the Squire put his fingers to 
his lips. 

é Willie,” said Lance very solemnly as they entered the 
house, “ you stuff yourself with poetry. It pays—sometimes.”’ 





210 The Irish Monthly. 


CHaprgsr IX. 
NOTES OF INTERROGATION. 


. . . . Over all 
A healthy sound simplicity should reign, 
A seemly plainness, name it what you will, 
Republican or pious. 
‘Worpsworru. 


“I say, you fellows,—have you heard the latest ?”’ 

The “ fellows ” were sitting after dinner in one of the three 
rustic summer-houses that stood at different corners of the lawn, 
and were known respectively as Snaggery, Sniggery, and 
Snuggery. The last-mentioned retreat was reserved for father and 
mother, and suoh visitors or children as they might from time to 
time invite thereto. The Snaggery was sometimes called the Day- 
Nursery, and was given over to the younger members of the 
family, while Sniggery sheltered the bigger lads. 

Harry had crossed the big lawn very slowly, and was entering 
Sniggery with a face (as Lance put it) as long as a cello. 

“ Have you heard that Hilary is booked for the afternoon P”” 
he asked, as his brothers clamoured for the “ latest.” 

“ Well ”—burst forth Lance—‘ I do call that a beastly shame ! 
And just as we'd made our plans for the day ! I wish old K.——”’ 

“ Gently, Lanny,” interrupted George quietly. ‘‘ Let’s hear 
the whole story.” 

“It’s father’s day for the Review, as you know,’—Harry 
explained, ‘‘ and mother has two sick people to see. The Colonel’s 
in London and won’t be back till the end of the week, and Mr. K. 
is dying to go all over the place and see everything.” 

“ With Hilary for guide ?” asked George. “ Poor old chap! ”’ 

“é What, do you say to rolling the cricket-patch instead of play- 
ing our first game of the season P” Harry suggested. 

“The very thing,” assented George. ‘The ground’s in an 
awful mess. And it wouldn’t be fair to start oricket without 
Hilary.” 

‘Suppose we make a move, then,” said Harry. “I don’t 
want to do the elder brother in Hilly’s absence, but I’m sure 
mother would think too much Sniggery is not good for us in the 
month of April. It’s a bit chilly out of the sunshine.” 





BDongea in the Dala. “SEL 


Lance was indulging in one of his (very rare) flashes of silence, 
but he rose with the rest and wandered towards the park. 

The lads had barely left the lawn when Mr. Kittleshot and 
Hilary appeared on the terrace. The old gentleman took out his 
cigar case and looked curiously at the tall lad by his side— 
wonderiug if the boy thought himself old enough to smoke. Mr- 
Kittleshot had heard Hilary’s age more than once, but he could 
not recall it. The lad was big enough for eighteen, but his face, 
as well as his dress, was that of a much younger boy. 

“ May I—er—ought I—to offer you a cigar ?” 

“ No, thank you, sir.” 

“ You never smoke P”’ 

é“ I have done so—several times.” 

“And what happened ?’—Mr. Kittleshot asked jocularly. 
(He was thinking of his own first cigar). 

é“ I was birched for it.” 

Hilary spoke as promptly and as simply asif he had been 
asked a question of the catechism, but Mr. Kittleahot was sorry 
for his question. Hé felt that he had blundered. He was not 
used to boys, scarcely knew how to talk to them, and, speaking 
generally, did not like them. Yet—though he did not know that 
Hilary was losing an afternoon’s play—he had wished to pro- 
pitiate this fresh and happy-looking youngster. Mr. Kittleshot 
felt that he had made a false start. 

But Hilary stood there while his companion lighted a cigar— 
stood straight as an arrow (thanks tothe Colonel’s drill), his head 
well in the air, alert, ready and eager to answer any question 
Croesus might put, and to show him the beauty as well as the 
nakedness of Ridingdale Hall and Park. 

é This is the Snuggery, sir.”—Hilary was the first to. break 
silence as the two stepped from the terrace to the lawn and con- 
fronted the nearest of the three summer-houses. Mr. Kittleshot’s 
pince-nez came into operation immediately. 

“ Decidedly snug,” he remarked—greatly admiring Hilary’s 
adroitness in so quickly introducing a fresh topic—“ and full of 
conveniences.” 

‘It looks much better in the summer,” Hilary mate haste to 
add. ‘The cushions have not yet been put in these low chairs. 
My father reads aloud to my mother here when the long evenings 
come.” 





212 The Irish Monthly. 


“ Very nice, indeed,” Mr. Kittleshot remarked. ‘ But what a 
noble lawn you have got !”—turning round to look at the acre and a 
half of weil-mown grass. “This is one of the many things that 
England alone can produce. So thick, and close, and springy ! 
So suggestive of years and years of cultivation. But what an army 
of mowers you must need !” 

“ Harry, and ‘teorge, and Lance and [ are responsible for the 
lawn, sir.’ 

Mr. Kittleshot’s pince-nez were directed to Hilary. 

é You don’t mean to say that you have no gardeners here P”” 

“No, sir. Sometimes a man comes to work in the kitchen- 
garden beyond ; but we boys have charge of the lawn and of the 
flowers.” 

Mr. Kittleshot was looking at the daffodils, the forget-me- 
nots, and primroses that bordered the lawn with April profusion. 

“é Whose idea is this?” he asked, showing evident pleasure at 
the massing of those two delicate tinte—the sweetlight-blue of 
the forget-me-not, and the pale yellow of the primrose. 

The idea was Hilary’s, and he said so. 

“é And I[ notice that you have made the border at the far end of 
the lawn a receptacle for the more vivid colours. That blaze of gold 
does not kill the lighter tint of the primroses—as it might have 
done if you had distributed your daffodils among them. This is 
indeed very pleasing,’’—Mr. Kittleshot added as he took a general 
survey of the garden and lawn. 

“This, sir, —said Hilary as they neared the end of the lawn 
—Sig ¢ Snaggery. 299 

“ And why ‘ Snaggery ?’ ” 

“Its a corruption of ‘Snarlery,’ I fancy; but Willie, 
Murrington, who goes in for philology, says it comes from snag, 
a short branch or shoot; and that it isa most appropriate name 
for the children’s play-place.”’ 

“ And the one at the opposite corner P” 

‘That, sir, is ‘Sniggery.” We bigger boys use it a good deal. 
In very hot weather we have school there. Will you come in 
sir P” 

Mr. Kittleshot stepped into the big, roomy arbour, hexagonal 
in shape, and furnished with strong benches and a centre table of 
great solidity. The wooden walls were literally covered with 
coloured prints—not fixed at haphazard, but arranged according 


Doings in the Dale. 213 


to a scheme prepared by the thoughtful and artistic George. 
Above the doorway hung a large orucifix, and opposite to this, on 
the far wall, a bracket supporting a statue of the Holy Child, and 
vases of fresh white flowers. The tloor was deeply scored with the 
marks of clog-irons, but Mr. Kittleshot noticed at once the exquisite 
cleanliness of the whole interior. The outlook was that of an 
earthly paradise, for from the open door and the two big windows 
could be seen the whole expanse of lawn and its deep borders of 
blossoms. 

On this April afternoon the sunlight lay lavishly on green 
grass and spring flowers, and Mr. Kittleshot sat down on one of 
the hard benches of “‘Sniggery ” with great content. 

é“ The meaning of Sniggery is obvious,” he remarked with one 
of his rare smiles. 

é I think so,” said Hilary laughing a little, “ but here again 
there is a difference of opinion on the subject. George and Willie 
say the word comes from snig, which as you know, sir, is a sort 
of eel. Well, an eel wriggles. and boys are apt to do the same.” 

Mr. Kittleshot laughed outright. 

é“ Very ingenious, I’m sure. But I prefer the more obvious 
meaning. In fact, I think the influence of the place is upon me, 
and that I myself am inclined to snigger.”’ 

Hilary began to feel more at home with the millionaire, for, 
though the boy had appeared to be perfectly at ease from the 
beginning, he was in reality a little disturbed. What was there 
about Ridingdale that could interest a man like Mr. Kittleshot ? 
And how could he, Hilary, be expected adequately to entertain 
such a personage for an entire afternoon? The knowledge that by 
giving up two or three hours’ play he was doing a service to his 
father was in itself a sufficient recompense, but—well, as he sat 
down side by side with Croesus, the lad could not help wishing 
that he had had time to make some trifling change in his clothes. 
The contrast between his own carefully mended suit of blue serge 
—the jacket sleeves of which would show such a quantity of woollen 
shirt at the wrist, just as the knickerbockers would keep s.ipping 
above the knee—and Mr. Kittleshot’s spotless and perfectly 
fitting broadcloth, was distressingly startling. Then although 
Hilary had early that morning before going to Mass, put quite as 
brilliant a polish on his clogs as the millionaire’s servant had 
imparted to his master’s shoes, the boy had not been able to walk 


214 The Irish Monthly. 


to church and back again, and after school to take a long ramble 
in the wood, without sullying the brightness of those same clogs. 
One thing, however, he was glad of—his big broad collar was 
snowy and stiff, and his long black stockings were flawless. His 
mother looked to it that these things were always so. 

So Hilary tried to be what a lad of sixteen finds it so hard to 
become—less and less self-conscious. He did not know that Mr. 
Kittleshot had already given him oredit for the possession of this 
great quality. 

The afternoon was a memorable one, and Croesus did not 
soon forget the impression of it. He had not been prepared for 
such a succession of surprises, natural and domestic, The lawn, 
itself, for instance, appeared to have no outlet on its farther side— 
beyond Snaggery and Sniggery—but Hilary led the way through 
a winding path lined with shrubs to that fairest of April sights— 
an apple orchard in full blossom! Mr. Kittleshot’s amazement 
and admiration astonished the boy and pleased him. He was, in 
fact, delighted to find that, after all, he and the millionaire had 
something in common. Perhaps if the latter had been questioned 
he would have admitted that this was the first time in his life 
that he had had the leisure, or the inclination, to examine and 
appreciate an orchard “‘ pranked with nodding daffodils,” or to 
linger by “ old boles flushed with the wine of Spring.” 

By the time Mr. Kittleshot had wandered through the monster 
kitchen garden,—not a rood too big for the needs of Ridingdale 
Hall—and looked into the stable-yard, and taken a peep at the 
various pets belonging to the boys, he found himself too tired to 
take the walk necessary for reaching the farm, and begged that he 
might be conducted there on a future day. 

As they returned to the house by way of the park, Hilary 
began to wonder if his father would wish him to show Mr. 
Kittleshot the many parts of the interior that gentleman had not 
seen. “ Show him everything ’’—Mr. Ridingdale had said, and 
80, as it was not quite five o’clock, the boy put it to his companion 
as to whether he would rest in the drawing-room or see the housef 
Mr. Kittleshot was evidently anxious to peep into the interior o. 
Ridingdale Hall. 

Mrs. Ridingdale’s domestic laws were few and light, but always 
rigorously enforced, and one of these commands was that, though 

t be worn on the ground-floor, they were never to be 


Doings wn the Dale. 215 


taken upstairs, So Hilary excused himself for a moment and 
passed into the long room on the left-hand side of the entrance 
hall—an apartment known to the boys as the OCloggery. Mr. 
Kittleshot not hearing, or not understanding the boy’s remark, 
followed him. 

é“ May I ask how many servants you keep?” the millionaire 
inquired as his eye followed the long line of boxes filled with 
clogs and shoes of every size and shape. 

Hilary guessed the reason of this question and promptly 
answered— 

‘Two, sir. Buta charwoman comes twice a week. We bigger 
boys clean our own clogs and boots, and one extra pair every 
morning, so that the servants are saved everything of that sort.” 

Hilary might have added that the boys relieved the servants of 
many items of daily labour ; but he did not say this. 

é Then you rise early P” 

é“ At, six in the summer and seven in the winter.” 

‘Hum! Any lessons before breakfast ?” 

é“ Only in the summer half of the year, sir. When we get up 
at seven, there is only just time to hear Mass before breakfast.”’ 

é But your chapel is a mile away ! ” exclaimed Crosus. 

“é Not quite, sir, —Hilary corrected, courteously. ‘ Perhaps 
a little under the three-quarters. Most of us can get there in ten 
minutes.” 

“ And you go every morning P ” 

é“ Yes, sir.” 

Mr. Kittleshot evidently thought that boys existed, primarily, 
for purposes of interrogation. Tennyson says: “In children a 
great curiousness be well, who have to learn themselves and all 
the world ; ” and it is certain that the little ones ask more 
questions than their elders can answer. Perhaps, then, it is fitting 
that the interrogated of childhood should become at once the 
interrogator and the Nemesis of boyhood. 

Hilary led the way upstairs, and it was soon evident to Mr. 
Kittleshot that many of the rooms had been put to a use for 
which the architect had not intended them. The great drawing- 
room, for example, had been turned into an oratory, and two 
handsome reception-rooms on the same floor were day and night 
nurseries respectively. 

The children’s apartments were silent and empty. Even 





916 The Irish Monthly 


little Antony, the ten-months-old baby, was out of doors in the 
April sunshine. 

Mr. Kittleshot’s quick eye took in everything, but every 
remark he made came in the form of a question. 

‘Pretty cold up here in winter, isn’t it P” he asked, as they 
reached the seoond floor. He was inspecting the boys’ 
dormitories—big rooms as bare as a barracks, and each containing 
three or four cubicles. 

Hilary admitted that it was sometimes a little chilly in the 
early morning. 

“T should think so!” Mr. Kittleshot said with a shiver. 
é“ Where does this lead to ?’’—he asked, with his hand on the 
knob of an inner door. 

The boy stepped forward hastily—but he was too late. There 
was only one skeleton in the cupboard of Ridingdale Hall. It 
was the skeleton of a forse. Hilary, with crimson cheeks, followed 
Mr. Kittleshot into the “ Punishment-room,” and found that 
gentleman fingering the strong leathern straps of the whipping- 
block with admiration. 

“Your father does things very thoroughly, I perceive,’ he 
remarked with a grim smile ‘ These, I take it, are for the wrists 
and ankles ? ”’ 

“ Yes.” 

Hilary answered shortly and sharply. He could not help the 
thought that Mr. Kittleshot was wanting in delicacy of feeling 
and tasteful speech. The boy would not say what he might have 
said, viz.: that the straps had been fixed to the block at his own 
request. (“They will save the presence of a third person,” he 
had urged, “ and will make things easier for you, father ’’). 

The millionaire seemed determined to end as badly as he had 
begun. 

é Is it much in use?” he asked, examining the birch-rod 
through his pince-nes—quite unconscious of the boys’ uneasiness. 

“ Once or twice a year, perhaps.” 

Hilary turned to leave the room, and Croesus followed him— 
beginning dimly to realise that he was blundering again. 

Under other circumstances, the lad might have told his com- 
panion many interesting facts. He might have explained his 
father’s method of procedure—Mr. Ridingdale’s unwillingness to 
impose corporal punishment unless the culprit would admit that 





SIE 


Doings in the Dale. 217 


he deserved it—his care to inflict it without passion, and his 
anxiety to prove to the sufferer that the pain endured was a 
thorough expiation of the fault. Now, however, Hilary led the 
way down-stairs in silence. One glance at the boy’s face made 
Mr. Kittleshot a trifle repentant. 

é The lad is sensitive,” thought the millionaire, “ and I have 
been thoughtless. Now the wounded feelings of the average boy 
could be healed by putting a sovereign into his hand; but, if I 
ventured to tip this fellow he would be my enemy for life.” 

By which reasoning Mr. Kittleshot proved himself a judge of 
character. 

‘‘ Forgive me, my boy,” he said, as they reached the entrance 
hall. “I am sorry to have hurt you,” he added, holding out his 
hand. 

Hilary’s face cleared as he shook the proffered hand. From 
that moment he decided that the millionaire was not wholly 
heartless. 

“ May | show you the school-rooms, sir?” 

But Mr. Kittleshot pleaded fatigue, and Hilary led the way 
to the drawing-room. Father Horbury was there, alone, and 
deep in the pages of a new book. The millionaire was glad to be 
introduced to him. 

Among the many things for which the Squire daily thanked 
God was the friendsl.ip of this devoted priest. The two men had 
known one another from boy hood—neither of them at that period 
ever dreaming that the day would come when his dearest 
possession would be the faith of the (Catholic Church, neither ever 
imagining that for so many years of his future life he would be 
bound to the other by a stronger tie than that of school-boy friend- 
ship. It has been said that little Jack Ridingdale’s boyhood was 
a lonely one: it would have been much lonelier but for the kind- 
ness of Hubert Horbury. The Squire had reason enough for his 
love of country life. He could never forget the earlier years of 
his boyhood, spent in his mother’s London house—years that 
would have been intolerable in their monotony but for the books 
that became his solace and his pastime. “ The frivolous Lady 
Ridingdale,” as she was called, begrudged every week spent out of 
London, and for most of the years of Jack’s boyhood his soldier 
father was away on foreign service. Drinking in the delights of 
park and woodland, meadow and garden, and watching his own 

Vor. xxv. No 298 16 


218 The Irish Monthly. 


boys grow tall and strong and ruddy with abundance of plain 
food and delicious air, the Squire often thought of the little nursery 
and the shabby school-room on the top floor of that stuffy 
Belgravian house; of the days, and sometimes weeks, that passed 
without even the conventional walk in the park. He thought, 
too, of the reasons of this cruel deprivation of air and exercise. 
Often enough the lack of decent clothing, or of whole shoes, was 
the sole cause ; still oftener, the necessary preparations for one of 
his mother’s frequent “little parties’ made it impossible for the 
servants to do mcre for the children than was involved in the 
preparation of a hasty, and not unfrequently an insuitiicient, 
meal. 

But when little Jack reached the royal age of nine, a good 
fairy appeared in that ill-managed and neglected household, and 
to the small boy’s lasting delight he was carried off to his grand- 
father’s place in Yorkshire. It was here that he first met Hubert 
Horbury, the son of the rector of the village in which stood Lord 
Dalesworth’s biggest country house. Here werespent four happy 
years, marred only by occasional visits to his mother. Then Lord 
Delesworth sent him to Harrow, and at school Jack and Hubert 
were not divided. 

On this April afternoon, as Mr. Kittleshot sat sipping the tea 
that Hilary himself had brought to the drawing-room, he looked 
at Father Horbury with great interest. ‘The millionaire had 
never before been at such close quarters with a Catholic priest, 
and the novelty of the position gave Croesus a certain pleasure. 
But when the Squire came in, closely followed by Mrs. Ridingdale, 
and Mr. Kittleshot noticed the pleasure with which they greeted 
the priest, and the terms of easy but entirely courteous familiarity 
with which they welcomed him, the old man said to himself: 
é“ Here is a new force, and one to be reckoned with.” 

Davip BEARNE, 8.J. 


{To be continued). 





( 219 ) 


OLAVIS ACROSTICA. 
A Key to “ Dusiin Acrostics.”’ 


Parr XIV. 


s 


'T'RE answer to No. 27, as we have it in the handwriting of 

the author of it, Mr. Robert Reeves, Q.C., is pestle and 
mortar. The poet alludes to more than one meaning of each 
word—to the “‘ Song of Pestle,” to mace and Mace (whilome prize- 
fighter) and to many other persons and things. The first letters 
of the two words are P. M.—post meridiem ; but the “light” 
throws no light on the subject, for which of us remembers now 
the celebrated sea-song P— 


“ "T'was post meridian half past one— 
By signal I from Nancy started.”’ 


Let the reader who cares for this ingenious game refer back to 
our instalment for last month, to see how Mr. Reeves makes use of 
this, and how he obscures the other “lights”? which run thus in 
order : electro, Storr, tot, Lavinia, eager. ‘‘ Electro-plate” is with 
us still, but I do not know if Storr and Mortimer are still famous 
London jewellers. ‘The young Lavinia” figures in Thomson’s 
“é Seacons ” which are hardly as familiar now as in Mr. Reeves’ 
schoolboy days. The last “light” seems sv weak that we can 
hardly have read it aright. 

We leave to the ingenious reader till next month No. 28 
which is by no less eminent a man than “ F.”’ 


No. 28. 


Fleeting, fierce, of brief endurance, 
We're united in assurance. 


1. Loud and joyous is the chorus! 

2. Opera goers all adore us. 

3. Steady, boys! There's death before us. 
4. I describe the power of Porus. 


990 ) 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


Passion Flowers. By Father Edmund, of the Heart of Mary, C.P. 
(New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Benziger Brothers). 

The Passionist, Father Edmund, is an English convert whose name 
in the world was Benjamin Dionysius Hill. His missionary life has 
been chiefly spent in South America, but he is now working in the 
United States. Twenty years ago he published a small volume of 
devotional poems which bore unmistakable marks of inspiration and 
cultivation. He has since been a frequent contributor to the religious 
magazines, especially the Ave Maria; and he has been induced to 
make ‘a final collection of his poems. The present volume, which 
happily is only one of three, consists chiefly of lyrics and sonnets that 
are directly or remotely concerned with the Passion of our Divine 
Lord. Inthe poet’s extremely interesting preface we are surprised and 
pleased at his reference to Moore's influence upon him. We are more 
pleased with this passage than with his theory of sonnet-making, 
though in this department also he has done excelleut work. This 
book, which the publishers have made very beautiful exteriorly, is 
full of true poetry and true piety. The date of composition is affixed 
to many of the poems, and the first of them is dated 1866, the year of 
the author’s conversion to the Faith. 'lhis and the other Eucharistic 
pieces seem to be among his best, though some of the poems of human 
feeling attain perhaps a higher degree of artistic merit, such as the 
exquisite stanzas ‘‘to a widowed mother on the death of her only 
daughter azed seven.” The present collection closes with some sixty 
pages of musical blank verse on the story of the Spanish Saint, 
Hermenegild, who was the hero of a little schoolboy drama by the 
saintly Father Augustus Law, 8.J. We hope we shall not have long 
to wait four the second volume of this collected edition of Father 
Edmund’s poems, which is to contain his tributes to our Blessed Lady 
and to bear the title of Mariae Corolla, We turn for the present 
from ‘‘ Passion Flowers” with a word of thanks for the Irish feeling 
betrayed now and then by this English poet-priest. 

2. Lyrics. By John B. Tabb (Boston: Copeland and Day). 

Although there is little in this dainty volume to indicate the fact, we 
have here another poet-priest, not only living in America but American 
by birth. Father Tabb has often gained admittance into the principal 
magazines of New York, generally by one of those quatrains of which 
American editors seem to be so fond. in the present extremely elegant 
little quarto most of the pages have at the top four such lines of small 


Notes on New Books. 221 


type, all the rest being left blank. Even through the remainder of 
the volume the poems seldom spread beyond six or eight lines, But 
though brevity may be the soul of wit, poetry requires a gocd deal of 
expansiveness: and a great many of these condensed quasi-epigrams 
appear to us to be excessively obscure. There is much refinement and 
poetic taste, but we think there would have been truer poetry if the feel- 
ing and the subjects were more human and more priestly, However, 
Father Tabb has without doubt a genuine inspiration far removed 
from the commonplace; and many of his exquisite little poems are 
worthy of the very artistic presentment that his Boston publishers 
have given to them. 

3. Hidelity: A Catholic Story, with Glints from Real Life. By 
Mary Maher (London: Burns and Oates). 

This prettily produced’ volume of two hundred pages consists “f a 
single story, which makes very pleasant reading although decidedly 
written with a serious purpose. The opening chapter interests us at 
once in the fortunes of two schoolgirls who are starting, one for St. 
Louis in Missouri, the other for London, after having completed their 
education together at ‘St. Agatha’s, a well-known educational 
establishment in tle South of Ireland.” Each of them goes through 
a good many adventures before they meet again, when Gertrude 
(whose surname we have failed to discover) makes her honeymoon 
trip to the States and visits Agnes O’Connor in her Good Shepherd 
Convent. Incidentally we have vivid glimpses of Dr. George Conroy 
when Apostolic Delegate to Canada, of Cardinal Manning and (under 
a slightly disguised name) Lady Georgiana Fullerton. There is plenty 
of interesting incident and careful character-drawing; and wethinkthat - 
many a “ Mother Alphonsus” will be very glad to add this handsome 
volume to the library of her Children of Mary, who are not likely to 
let it lie idle upon the chelves, though they may accuse it of preaching 
a little too much. We will join with it now another story-book 
which ought certainly to be added to such a library if not found ther. 
already. Many of our readers remember “ The Secret of the King,” 
one of the most interesting and effective tales that this magazine hax 
ever presented to its constituency. Its author, the Rev. Frederick 
Kolbe, D.D., of Capetown, had already published through Burns and 
Oates, a volume called “ Minnie Caldwell,” consisting of three stories 
of very high literary merit and extremely interesting, although frankly 
edifying and didactic. We were glad to find lately this beautiful book 
on the counter of a Dublin bookseller—which showed that it is still in 
demand. One of its most prominent lessons is also taught in this new 
tale ‘‘ Fidelity.” 

4. Cardinal Vaughan has prefixed a very interesting preface toa 





222 The Irish Monthly 


volume by his illustrious predecessor, Cardinal Wiseman—‘ Medita- 
tions on the Sacred Passion of our Lord ” (London : Burns and Oates) 
He very wisely remarks that, as regards methods of meditation, it is 
not necessary to condemn one system because we may personally 
prefer another. Omnis spirttus laudet Dominum. Many, will be greatly 
assisted in their loving study of Jesus Christ Crucified by these devout 
meditations of the holy and gifted man who was the first Cardinal 
Archbishop of Westminster. 

5. Benziger Brothers, whom we have occasion to name so often in 
connection with their bookselling establishments in three great 
American cities, have published ‘‘ The Catholic Father,” by Dr. Egger, 
Bishop of St. Gall—revised and adapted for use in the United States, 
by an American Missionary priest. 

6. The Catholic Truth Society have added to their vast series of 
penny books ‘‘ The Rosary Oonfraternity ” by Father Procter, U.P., an 
exceedingly effective and interesting piece of controversy by Father 
De Zulueta, S.J., entitled ‘‘ Bessie’s Black Puddings, or the Bible 
only,” anda good sketch of Father Burke, the genial and richly 
gifted Dominican preacher, which we prefer very much to Mr. 
Fitzpatrick’s long biography, and even to the “ Inner Life ” published 
more recently. Another excellent penny Life is “Bishop Milner 
(1752-1826) by the Rev. Edwin H. Burton. We are sorry not to 
have been able to announce sooner the admirable ‘‘ Readings for 
Lent,” by the Rev. Joseph Rickaby, 8.J., issued by this indefatigable 
Society. 

7. Besides Cardinal Wiseman’s ‘‘ Meditations on the Passion,” 
there is another book suitable for Passiontide and Lent—‘ Ecce 
Homo,” by the Rev. D. G@. Hubert (London: R. Washbourne). It 
consists of forty devout and simple meditations on the Passion and 
Death of our Divine edeomer. The publisher has produced the 
little volume with his usual taste and neatness. It is in a second 
edition; and Lady Herbert of Lea prefixed a short preface, when it 
appeared first in English (for it is translated from the French) in the 
year 1894. 

8. Nowadays schoolbooks are brought out in a very attractive 
fashion. Messrs. Browne and Nolan, Nassau Street, Dublin, have 
published, with even more than their usual elegance, Washington 
Irving’s ‘‘ Bracebridge Hall,” which has been edited in an altogether 
admirable manner by Mr. John D. Colclough, who has furnished it 
with full and excellent notes, a critical introduction, and a glossary. 
The editor seems to us to have discharged every part of his duty very 
satisfactorily. 

9, Mr. Percy Fitzgerald has added to his Jewel Series a new volume, 


Votes on New Books. £49 


‘Jewels of Prayer and Meditation from Unfamiliar S>urces 
(London: Burns and Oates). There is an immense variety in the 
extracts that Mr. Fitzgerald has taken from all sorts of writers, from 
Tauler to Adelaide Procter. He joins together a great many prayers 
from the Imitation of Christ and in another place some dozen of separate 
thoughts from Father Faber and from Cardinal Manning. It is a 
pleasant and pious book. 

10. Messrs. Burns and Oates have brought out the fourth volume 
of their beautiful new edition of ‘‘The Formation of Christendom,” 
by T. W. Allies, K.C.8S.G. This volume treats of its subject as seen in 
Church and State. Though it is a continuation of the three volumes 
already published, it is complete and entire in itself. Mr. Allies’ 
position, as one of the most learned and most authoritative of Catholic . 
historians, has long been established. Cardinal Vaughan has said 
of his ‘Formation of Christendom’ :—“It is one of the noblest 
historical works I have ever read. We have nothing like it in the 
English language.” The treasures of erudition contained in the 
present addition to this great Work are placed more conveniently at 
our disposal by a minute table of contents and a good index. We 
Catholics ought to be deeply grateful to such laborious and self- 
sacrificing scholars as Mr. Allies. He has done noble service for the 
cause of historical truth. 

11. Messrs Sealy, Bryers, and Walker, Middle Abbey Street, 
Dublin, have published two very valuable and original contributions 
to Irish granimar and lexicugraphy, by the Rev. Edmund Hogan, 
S.J., F.R.U.I. D. Litt. : An Irish Phrase Book illustrating the various, 
meanings and uses of verbs and prepositions combined, and, secondly, 
a Handbook of Irish Idioms. BEac!: of these may be had for Is. 6d. 
though the first contains 144 pages and the second 136, involving so 
much labour and care even in the accurate printing of many hundreds of 
Irish idioms and many thousands of Irish words. Father Hogan wishes 
to bring the student face tu face with the real features of the language 
and make him thoroughly acquainted with its real difficulties, 
which are its idioms. These idioms are connected chiefly with the 
prepositions, which in Irish play a larger and livelier part than in other 
languages. Thus we have it on the authority of Father Hogan him- 
self that a certain passage of the Bible has in Greek 140 prepositions, 
in Latin 158, in German 236, in French, 304, in English 323, while 
- the same passage requires in Irish 508 prepositions. We regret that 
neither of these excellent books has an index. We hope that the 
author will supply this omission in a new edition of each; for, accord- 
ing to the learned bibliographer Antonio, ‘ the index of a book should 
be made by the author himself, even if the book should be written by 
someone else,” 





224 The Irish Monthiy. ' 


12. The seventh volume of the “ Calendar of the Ancient Records 
of Dublin,” has just been issued from the press of Mr. Joseph 
Dollard, edited in his usual thorough and masterly manner by Sir 
John T. Gilbert. This volume embraces the period between the years 
1716 and 1730. Gratitude is due to the Dublin Corporation for this 
noble series. 

13. My First Prisoner. By the Governor, (Aberdeen: Moran 
and Co.) 

The dedication of this handsome volume is signed “B.T” We 
do it a service by saying that these initials reveal to us a name which 
connects this work with Wolfe Tone’s Secretary, and still more closely 
with the Author of the “ Personal Narrative cf the Irish Rebellion.” 
In this centenary of ’98 why is not this authorship put forward 
plainly ? We are not sure that the name of the story has been happily 
chosen. In reality it is a very unconventional novel, full of incidents 
and accidents, utilizing the experiences of an Irish Zouave at Rome, 
in the Pope’s service, and also the Land agitation in Ireland, taking 
a generous and chivalrous view of the many practical questions that 
the changes of the story introduce. Besides the two chief characters 
there are a great many subordinates who talk very characteristically, 
and add liveliness to the tale. The ending is too dramatic. 

14. The Very Rev. John Curry, P.P., St. Mary’s, Drogheda, has 
compiled, and published through Browne and Nolan, of Dublin, 
an excellent pamphlet containing the most instructive documents 
concerning the Glebe Loan Question in Ireland, on which he is himself 
the greatest authority. 


15. We end with another expression of our admiration for the zeal 
and ability displayed by the American Catholic Historical Society of 
Philadelphia, The eighth volume of its ‘‘ Records” is most interesting 
even for readers thousands of miles away. For instance, the 
“Diary of the Rev. Patrick Kenny,” who was born in 1766, and 
has surely been in heaven these sixty years— for he was, indeed, á holy, 
humble, and laborious priest. Many excellent portraits are given. 


MAY, 1808. 





THE PRAYER OF MARY, QUEEN. 


TRAVELLED on a windy cloud 
That sailed the midnight sky, 
And saw, wrapped in a sable shroud, 
This world go wheeling by. 


Upon a circling wind I spun 
The moon and stars between ; 

Uprose from out a hidden sun 
The holy Mary Queen ! 


A golden flame her long hair was, 
Her eyes were wet with rain ; 

As sweet a face no lady has— 
Two cherubs were of her train. 


Her gown was made of every flower, 
Her girdle gold entwist, 

Her veil was all a rainbow shower, 
Her feet were silver mist. 


She stood upon the world’s dark nm, 
Her lifted hands implored, 

Along with her sweet whisper, Him, 
The Universe’s Lord. 


Most piercing sweet the voice, ‘‘O mine 
Own Son, of mortal born ! 

The robes are still incarnadine 
On Calvary were worn. 


Vou. xxvi. No 299 


226 


The Irish Monthly 


“Is earth grown barren to Thy spade? 
Yet grew it the rood tree; 
Of its sharp thorns Thy crown was made, 
It gave a grave to Thee. 


“ Its daughter Thou wert wont to call 
Thy mother; Oh, be then 
Still patient with her kindred, all 
The wayward sons of men! 


‘Thy purple robe is spread with stars, 
Thy head is crowned with suns, 
The wheels of Thy life-laden cars 

Turn while Thine ordinance runs. 


‘‘ A many gold ships navigate 
The seas of boundless space, 
And carry their immortal freight 
To port of Thy loved face. 


“Their children follow their sun, Thee, 
To days without the night; 
Their souls sail for Eternity, 
And fearless run the light. 


‘t Yet hast Thou mother of their kin : 
My Babe upon my knee, 
I link thee to a world of sin— 
Thou wilt not unmake me. 


“ My race shall yet put on the sun, 
And darkness rule no more. 
Now, finish what-Thou hast begun, 
The law of light restore. 


é“ O Child, who from my humble knee 
Unto the Temple strayed, 
Thou didst come quickly home with me 
Because 1 wept and prayed. 


“ Ó meek and gracious Son of mine! 
At Cana in Galilee 
Thou gavest them the needful wine 
For but a word from me. 


Pigeonhole Paragraphs. : 227 


é“ Ó heaven’s uncomprehended Lord ! 
Thy mother still am I. 
Now hearken, hearken to my word— 
Let not the sinner die. 


“ So bid the rebel orb go by; 
Sweet Son, Creator dread, 
Be mercy only. Saviour, die 
Again, to raise these dead !” 


bá *% # % * 


The sun uprose, the heavens were rent 
And took her from my sight, 

Rose-red grew the wide firmament, 
And morn was glad with light. 


Rosa MvuLHoLLANDd GILBERT. 


PIGEONHOLE PARAGRAPHS. 
LVII. 


rae reason why this dish) gets so early a place in our menu 

this month is that it has often been set down before to take 
its chance after fiction and verse and essay ; but it was always sure 
to be crushed out at the last moment. Now, there are one or two 
little items for which I wish to secure the permanence of print: 
therefore to guard against casualties, our banquet leads off with 
the present very miscellaneous plat. 

* + * 

This series of pigeonhole paragraphs began at page 345 of 
our sixth volume in the middle of the year 1878, “twenty golden 
years ago.” It began with these cautious words. ‘In the first 
sentence of an unwritten set of Notes it is dangerous to speak of 
them as a series; for many a proposed series has ended with (or 
before) the publication of the first number thereof.’ The mis- 
giving thus confessed has been happily falsified by the long 
continuance of our Pigeonhole Paragraphs. That opening number 
of the series won the approval of a very eminent man who 


296 The Irssh Monthiy. 


happened to glance at it and who probably has never read any of its 

successors. How many of them have there been? I will not 

count the individual paragraphs; but of the monthly batches 

there seem to have been fifty-six, every year since 1878 having 

its share, from one to half a dozen. Therefore the present instal- 

ment may be called No. 57. 
% há ; bá 

A friend wished to ascertain the dates of certain articles of 
Mr. Henry Bedford, M.A., concerning the religion of Shakespeare. 
I appealed to the best authority on the subject, and I venture to 
print the result of my inquiries in Mr, Bedford’s words. Mr. 
Halliwell-Phillipps’ final and mature judgment on the question is 
of the highest interest and authority. 

* % % 

“I wrote a series of studies on English Litarature; the one 
on Shakespeare appeared in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record of April, 
1881, the last paragraphs of which treat slightly on Shakespeare’s 
religion (see pages 236-7). This led to a letter or two in the 
newspapers; but beyond that I wrote no more. But much more 
came of it in this way. I sent a copy to an old College friend, 
Halliwell-Phillipps, after reading in 1883 his ‘ Outlines of the Life 
of Shakespeare.” In February, 1&84, he wrote—‘ You will 
kindly pay no attention to what I have said in former years about 
Shakespeare’s Religion. I have sccumulated large stores of 
material, and, if I am spared, shall hope to be able to work it up 
into something. Davies’ authority of course outweighs an 
unlimited number of modern opinions derived from the plays.’ 

‘© In May, 1887, he sent me this new and enlarged edition of 
the ‘Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare,’ (Longmans, 1887), 
preceded by a letter in which he says: ‘I have entered at some 
length and with much oare into the question of Shakespeare’s 
religious views in a new edition just ready of my Life of 
Shakespeare, and I much want to send a copy for your acceptance. 
I know you will frankly tell me if 1 have failed in my case.’ On 
the cover he writes: ‘the religious history treated of in Vol. I., 
pp. 37, 38, 263-266; Vol. II., page 390 (note 369 important). 
In the same vol. pp. 396-405. Note No. 396 the first time that 
John Shakespeare’s Catholicism has been distinctly shown.’ 

é The case he proved was that Shakespeare lived and died a 
Catholic; and it is worth bearing in mind that Halliwell-Phillipps 


Ail 





Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 229 


lived and died a Protestant. He died not long ago. In subse- 
quent lectures in class I have not failed to impress the evidence 
of the best Shakespeare student and investigator of the present day. 

These facts are at your service. The books can be found in 
any good library, and the references make the work easy, for the 
two volumes are tall and stout and will well repay careful reading.” 

* bá s 

Some persons take a keen interest in comparing various 
versions of sacred or profane classical poems, and especially among 
sacred poems the Dies Irae. If any such have access to a com- 
plete set of The Irish Monthiy either in private collections or 
in publio libraries in London, Dublin, Chicago, and Newry—to 
name four places that we chance to know afford their citizens the 
opportunity in question—any such inquirer can find the best 
translations of this great hymn by Philip Stanhope Worsly and 
R. D. Williams, at page 292 of our fifth volume, and Judge 
()’Hagan’s fine version at page 136 of our second volume. Of 
another famous hymn, Adore Te devote, latens Deitas ! translations 
have been given in our pages by the same John O’ Hagan, vol. v., 
295 ; by the Rev. W. H. Eyre, 8.J., vol. xv., 78; and by Father 
Coleridge, S.J.. vol. xxiii, 14. The newest version, on quite 
original lines, is given in the excellent little devotional work which 
we earnestly commended among our Book Notices two months 
ago —‘‘ Confession and Communion,” edited by Father Thurston, 
S.J. This clever but somewhat unhymnlike version we take the 
liberty of adding to the three already enshrined in our pages; 
and, with our usual spite against anonymity, we take the still 
greater liberty of conjecturing that the letters “‘ G. T.,” appended 
to this translation, are the initials of the Rev. George Tyrrell, S.J. 


O Hidden God, devoutly unto Thee 
Bends my adoring knee. 
With lowly semblances from sight concealed, 
To Faith alone revealed. 
Fain would my heart transpierce the mystery, 
But fails and faints away and yields itself to Thee. 


Vision and taste and touch forsake us here, 
Nor tell us Thou art near. 
The ear alone we safely trust, and turn 
In faith from Thee to learn. 
What God’s own Son hath spoken is my creed : 
No truer word than His, Who is the Truth indeed. 


980 The Irish Monthly. 


When to the Cross Thy sacred limbs were nailed, 
Only the God was veiled ; 

But on the altar here Thy manhood too 
Lies hidden from our view. 

Both I believe, though neither can I see, 

And with the dying thief I ory, ‘‘ Remember me.”’ 


I cannot see those Wounds now glorified 
In hands and feet and side ; 
Yet upon Thee, with Thomas, do I call : 
My Lord, my God, my All. 
Increase my faith, fix all my hopes on Thee, 
And bind my heart to Thine in deathless charity. 


O dear memorial of the death of Christ 
For sinners sacrificed, 
O Bread that art alive and givest life 
In this our mortal strife, 
Grant that my soul may live upon this food 
And find in Thee its sweetest, sole abiding good. 


For me, dear Pelican, Thy bosom bled, 
For me Thy blood was shed. 
Stained and polluted though my life has been, 
That Blood can make me clean— 
That Blood whereof one precious drop could win 
Abundant pardon for a thousand worlds of sin. 


O Jesu, Whom by faith I now desory 
Shrouded from mortal eye ; 

When wilt ‘Thou slake the thirsting of my heart 
To see Thee as Thou art, 

Face unto face in all Thy glad array, 

*Tranced with the glory of that everlasting day ? 


* * $ 

A still grander eucharistic hymn of the Angelio Doctor is the 
Lauda Síon Salcatorem. I have never seen it noticed that St. 
Thomas Aquinas in one stanza of this marvellous composition 
versifies Ecoclesiastious XLIII., 33: “ Benedicentes Dominum, 
exaltate illum quantum potestis, major est enim omni laude.” 

“ Blessing the Lord, exalt Him as much as you can, for He is 
greater than all praise.” St. Thomas only changes the plural 
into the singular : 


“ Quantum potes, tantum aude, 
Quia major omni laude.”’ 
* * * 


There is a household of straitened means which is, I suspect, 
vary dear to God. It consists of four persons somewhat advanced 


Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 231 


in years—s man and his wife and her two widowed sisters. The 
wife and one of her sisters are stone-blind, having lost their sight 
in mature years. There is nochild or young person in the house, 
and they are their own attendants. The sister who is not blind 
sent two grown-up daughters to heaven, via Consumption, several 
years ago. She herself is dying now slowly and painfully of 
cancer under the eye. The man takes the two sightless ones to 
Mass every morning, though the church is many streets away ; 
but the dying woman, the only one of the three who could make 
her way thither by the help of her own eyes, has not heard Mass 
for many months—she who from time immemorial thought daily 
Mass a bounden duty, a blessed necessity, a matter of course, one 
of the necessaries of life. Yet even this supreme privation provokes 
no murmur. In trying to find out faults to confess, she was 
unable to accuse herself of discontent of any kind or degree. “ Of 
course [ am contented, for I like God to be punishing me.” This 
precisely is the way she put it; these are her exact words. She 
said that she knew God could not let her into heaven till she had 
been punished for her sins; and she “loved” (that was her word 
too) to get her punishment from God in this manner. It will be 
well with her for all eternity. Her purgatory will be over before 


her last anointing. 
* * 


In our twenty-fifth volume (1897) there was at page 455 a 
paper entitled “Two ways of Saying One Thing,” in the course 
of which were quoted passages from different authors about sleep. 
We had no notion of attempting an anthology of sleep, in which 
two sonnets of Wordsworth would have a high place, and Mrs. 
Browning’s “ He giveth His beloved sleep,” and the Veni, Somne 
of Sidronius Hoschius. A correspondent reminds me that such a 
collection ought to contain the inscription that Thomas Warton 
wrote for a statue of Somnus: 

Somne levis, quanquam certissima mortis imago, 
Consortem oupio te tamen esee tori ; 

Alma quies, optata, veni, nam sic sine vita 
Vivere quam suave est, sic sine morte mori. 


Dr. Wolcot translated it thus :-— 


Come, gentle Sleep ! attend thy votary’s prayer, 
And, though Death’s image, to my couch repair. 
How sweet, though lifeless, yet with life tolie, 
And, without dying, oh! how sweet to die! 





232 The Irish Monthly. 


An American priest, the Rev. John B. Tabb, devotes two at 
least of his tiny poems to this theme. 
Blind art thou as thy mother Night, 
And aa thy sister Silence dumb, 
But nought of soothing sonnd or sight 
Doth unto mortals come, 
So tender as thy fancied glance 
And dream-imagined utterance. 


And again he addresses Sleep thus :— 
What art thou, balmy sleep ? 
Foam from the fragrant deep 
Of silence, hither blown 
From the hushed waves of tone. 
* * * 

It is well to preserve this paragraph from the The Westminster 
Gazette, some day in January, 1898 :—“ Mr. T. E. Lloyd, formerly 
Chief Constable of York, who a few months ago was appointed a 
resident magistrate in Ireland, presiding at Cahirciveen (Oo. 
Kerry) Petty Sessions on Tuesday, said:—‘I should like to 
congratulate the public and the police of this district on the fact 
that after nearly four months’ constant attendance to my duties 
as resident magistate in this portion of Ireland, comprising six 
Petty Sessions districts, and an area of about one thousand square 
miles, I have never yet had before me a single complaint of 
theft, and not one single case of criminal assault on women or 
children. Both of these classes of cases are terribly common in 
England—I say so as an Englishman myself—where I lived all my 
life until quite recently, and I think that it speaks volumes for the 
people of South-West Kerry, amongst whom my lot is at present 
cast, that they should be so strictly upright and honest, considering 
their great poverty and the hard times they are now so patiently 
enduring.’ ”’ 

* * * 
' This letter of the Duke of Norfolk seems to be worth 
preserving also :— 
“ Norfolk House, St. James’s Square, London, S.W. 
“ December lith, 1897. 


“My Dear Canon Gordon—I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter 
telling me that the Oatholics in Sheffield propose to hold a meeting to protest 
against the calumnies against our priests and nuns which have been put forth in 
lectures delivered lately in Sheffield. You say alse that a wish has been expressed 
that I should take part in this meeting. 


Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 233 


“ I hope I am not presuming on the forbearanee of my fellow Catholics in 
Sheffield if I venture to express the hope that such meeting may not be held. I 
gather that these lectures were of the filthy kind usually delivered on these 
occasions, and that, as usual, some persons were found with appetites for the 
ill-flavoured food put before them. 

“I am sure no one will think that I do not share as keenly as anyone the 
indignation and disgust which exhibitions of this kind must arouse in us. 

** But I must protest against our suggesting to our fellow-citizens in Sheffield 
that we think they can believe such things of us, and on such authority. 

“ It is because I thank God with my whole heart that in His mercy I ama 
Oatholic ; because I glory in belonging to the old faith; because I love and 
reverence our priesthood as I do, that I decline to be driven to bay by accusations 
which no decent man would listen to, no generous man believe. 

“Thank God, two of my sisters are nuns, Thank God, one of my wife’s 
last acts in this life was to found a convent. Am I wrong in thinking that Sheffield 
would be ashamed tbat I should have to defend their fair fame before my fellow 
citizens ? 

“ Let us, Catholics of Sheffield, draw closer together; let us put aside all 
personal aims and factious interests ; and we shall hush the voice of calumny, and 
promote the cause of God’s truth among our fellow citizens, fur whose highest and 
most lasting welfare we would humbly wish to labour.—Yours very truly, 


‘¢ NorFOoLk.”’ 
* * * 


And so does this little note of Mr. Gladstone’s, especially if it 
should be (as it alas! must be) his last public utterance on the 
Irish Question :— 

‘¢ Bournemouth, 9th March, '98 


‘¢ Dear Mr. Dillon—I send a word of sympathy for the banquet on St. Patrick’s 
Day. Your cause is in your own hands. If Ireland is disunited, her cause so. 
long remains hopeless; if, on the contrary, she knows her own mind and 18 one in 
spirit, that cause is irresistible. With kind regards and good wishes, 

“ I am, dear Mr. Dillon, 
“ Yours faithfully, 
** W. E. Guapsronr.”’ 


( 284 ) 


ROSA MYSTIOA. 
I. 


The rose full of mystery— where is it found ? 

Is it anything true? Does it grow upon ground ? 

It was made of earth’s mould, but it went from men a eyes, 
And ite place is a secret, and shut in the skies. 


In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine, 
Find me a place by thee, Mother of mine / 


IT. 


But where was it erstwhile? Which is the spot, 
That was blest in it once, though now it is not ?— 
It is Galilee’s growth; it grew at God’s will 

And broke into bloom upon Nazareth Hill. 


In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine, 
I shall look on thy loveliness, Mother of mine. 


II. 


What was its season, then? How long ago? 

When was the summer that saw the bud blow? 

Two thousands of years are near upon past 

Since its birth, and its bloom, and its breathing its last. 


In the gardens of God, 1n the daylight divine, 
I shall keep time with thee, Mother of mine / 


LV. 


Tell me the name now, tell me its name— 
The heart guesses easily, is it the same? 
Mary, the Virgin, well the heart knows, 
She is the mystery, she is that rose. 


In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine, 
I shall come home to thee, Mother of mine / 


Rosa Mystica. 235 
V. 


Is Mary that rose, then? Mary the tree? 

But the blossom, the blossom there, who can it be ? 
Who can her rose be? Jt could be but one: 

Christ Jesus, our Lord—her God and her Son. 


In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine, 
Shew me thy Son, Mother, Mother of mine ! 


VI. 


What was the colour of that blossom bright ? 

White to begin with, immaculate white ! 

But what a wild flush on the flakes of it stood, 

When the rose ran in crimsonings down the cross- wood. 


In the gardens of God, +n the daylight divine, 
I shall worship the wounds with thee, Motner of mine. 


VII. 


How many leaves had it? Five they were then, 
Five like the senses, and members of men ; 

Five is the number by nature, but now 

They multiply, multiply, who can tell how ? 


In the gardens of God, tn the daylight devine, 
Make me a leaf sn thee, Mother of mine ! 


VIII. 


Does it smell sweetly, in that holy place? 
Sweet unto God, and the sweetness is grace ; 
The breath of it bathes the great heaven above 
In grace that is charity, grace that is love! 


To thy breast, to thy rest, to thy glory divine, 
Draw me by charity, Mother of mine / 


Gerarp Hopkins, 8.J. 


( 236 ) 


THROUGH THE DARK NIGHT. 
or, 


THIRTY YEARS AGO. 


OHAPTER XXXIX, 


NELL SAVES THE FENIANS OF MONALENA,. 


I” the meantime Louis Sarsfield, alias Joe Smith, had gone and 

come from America, and early in the comfortless month of 
February was travelling near and far inspecting insurgent troops ; 
he had to obey orders, but still kept to his own opinion that any 
recourse to arms would only result in shameful disaster. A secret 
council of delegates had been held in Dublin, and the 12th of 
February was fixed fora universal and fiery outburst ; a couple of 
days before that date the conspirators deemed it wise to postpone 
the rising to the 5th of March, but the countermand failed to 
reach the captain in command at Cahirciveen, and on Wednesday, 
the 13th of February, the tidings rang through the land that 
Kerry was in revolt. Word came from Killarney that the wires 
were cut, that a policeman carrying despatches was taken and put 
to death; that coastguard stations and barracks had been blown 
up, and that the Iveragh hills were covered with armed Fenians 
breathing fire and fury. Much was exaggerated, but the worst 
was believed. The gentry gathered their valuables and household 
goods into Killarney, arms were distributed, scouts sent out to re- 
connoitre, and alarmed appeals for aid were telegraphed to Dublin 
Castle. Troops came pouring in to annihilate the rebels, but when 
they arrived the rebels were nowhere to be found. 

When the Cahirciveen contingent came near Killarney, 
expecting to meet the forces of all the neighbouring districts, they 
became aware of the countermand, and the insurgents dispersed 
as best they might. In vain police and military beat the woods, 
and tramped the heather—no human head appeared among the 
giant ferns. The movements of the wild deer sometimes beguiled 
them inte military displays. Bugles were sounded, forces were 


>. 





Through the Dark Night. 237 


drawn up to charge the foe, until he sprang from his cover and 
sped away over the breezy hills. 

A bitter wind blew over the mountain that rose behind the 
village of Monalena as Louis Sarsfield left Father Garrett’s, and 
directed his steps towards it, to meet all the Fenians in that locality 
at the old fort upon the hill. With an uneasy heart Nell O’Malley 
went to her own room, wrapped a shawl about her, and sat in the 
window looking out upon the churchyard opposite, and further up 
at the lights in the shop-windows shining out upon the wet 
streets. She sat there lost in thought, her eyes wildly wandering 
from one thing to another, when suddenly she became conscious 
that a shadow passed slowly by the old vault in the churchyard. 
She looked upwards ; there was no rift in the dull sky, no passing 
cloud to account for it. With a creeping sensation she gazed 
again, and unmistakable figures, one after another, passed by the 
vault and disappeared in the gloom farther on. Thirteen figures, 
she counted them mechanically as they glided by; others may 
have passed before she began to noticethem. She thought to call 
her brother, whom she heard moving in the sitting-room, but her 
voice died away. Were the dead stealing from their graves to 
walk once more the upper world? No, the dead do not throw 
down stones. Nell’s superstitious fears vanished as she heard some 
portion of the churchyard wall falling. Could it be the Fenians ? 
It was not possible; they were to be on the hill of the fort at nine 
o’clock, and it was almost nine now. Softly she put down her 
window ; there was no light in her room, so she could not be seen, 
and looked out. Two figures got over the wall opposite, and 
walked up the street ; they paused for a moment at the open door 
of a publichouse; the light shone full upon them. 

“ Policemen,” she said, under her breath, “and the churchyard 
is full of them.” 

In one moment she was beside her brother. 

é“ Garrett,” she cried, “ they must get word to fly ; the village 
is full of police.” 

“é What—where ?” he started up. 

é“ Hidden in the churchyard ; two are gone up the street.” 

“ God of heaven, my poor people! Where’s my hat? I must 
give them word.” 

“ No, not you,” said Nell. “ You will be looked for. I'll go; 
give me the pass.” 


238 The Irish Monthly 


“Folly, girl; you could not cross the hills at this time of the 
night. I must go.” 

“If you go, you will ruin all,” said the girl. “ They will come 
looking for you surely ; keep them, delay them, and let me go.” 

é“ You could not find your way in the dark,” answered Father 
Garrett. | 

é“ I know my way through the hills as well asI do through the 
house,” she said. “For the love of God give me the word. I'll 
go on to Mona after.” 

é“ Liberty,” he answered. “ But, Nell ”—— 

Nell waited for no more; she was down the passage and out of 
the back door of the cottage before he could add another word ; 
he thought to follow her, when a knock came to the hall door, 
and two policemen requested to see Father O’Malley. 

Nell ran into the cold darkness of the night. Gusts of wind 
blew the stinging sleet into her face; sometimes through a rift in 
the heavy clouds a few pallid stars gleamed faintly for a moment 
and again disappeared. Her path lay through bogs and mires 
dangerous to the inexperienced traveller, even in the light of day ; 
a false step might plunge her into bog-holes deep enough to drown 
her, or sink her in morasses that would close silently above her 
head. Holding her shawl tightly around her, she hurried up the 
boreen that lay at the back of the house; then, making the Sign 
of the Cross, climbed the wall and slipped down into the next 
field. She ran rapidly on, praying to God to guide her aright, 
until she came to a deep river whose bridge was a narrow plank of 
wood. It was wet and slippery with the rains; but she did not 
hesitate, for it was much the shortest way to the mountains. With 
cautious firm footsteps she stood on it, pausing for a moment to 
let a gust of wind pass, and then orossed in safety to the other 
side. She fied on, but suddenly recollected if the police were led 
by an informer it was this way they would be likely to advance. 
She turned back, and with strength lent her by excitement, she 
rolled away the stones that kept the plank inits place, and pushed 
the end of it into the torrent. She did not wait to see the other 
side give way, but sped on again. She came toa ploughed field ; 
splashing through the water in the furrows, stumbling, but never 
falling, she toiled on breathlessly until she reached the bogs. This 
was the most dangerous part of her journey, but her eyes had 
become acoustomed to the darkness. She could mark the weird 





Through the Dark Night. 239 


light of the water in the holes, and avoided them; and her light 
footsteps flew over the soft ground, scarcely leaving an impression. 
The worst was over. She came to the foot of the bare green hill 
surmounted by the fort. Taking breath for a moment, she sprang 
up with renewed vigour and toiled on. With a beating heart she 
approached the summit, when a voice hissed in her ear: 

‘The word—the pass ?” 

é“ Liberty,” oried the panting girl. ‘‘ Let mesee your captain.”’ 

The murmur she had heard in the fort ceased suddenly. Ina 
second Louis Sarsfield was by her side. Nell struck the match he 
lighted out of his hand. ‘Nell! Great heavens!’’ he exclaimed 
é what has brought you here!” | 

“Fly!” she cried breathlessly. “ You are in danger. 
Monalena is full of police.” 

She told him what she had seen, and how Father Garrett 
wanted to come to warn him, only she thought it wiser he should 
remain at home least he be looked for. 

“ My brave Nell,” he murmured. 

They stood within the fort. 

“ Disperse, boys,” he said in a low, distinct voice. “‘ It’s likely 
we are betrayed. Let each man return as quick as possible to his 
home and conceal his arms. The police are in Monalena.” 

In one second the multitude of erect, motionless figures melted 
away as noiselessly as if they were sheeted spectres, and Nell was 
left alone with the rebel chief. 

“Go, go,” she cried. “ Why do you delay ?” 

é“ I cannot leave you,” he said, “ alone here at such an hour.” 

“ Don't think of me,” she answered, wringing her hands. 
‘‘ There is no fear of me. I will cross down to Mona.” 

“I will go with you. Ihave time enough to escape.” 

é You have not a moment, a second,” she cried. ‘“ You must 
not come with me. Fly, for God’s sake.” 

é It was always hard to leave you,” he said; “it is harder than 
ever now. Nell, my girl, one word before I go. I love you with 
all my heart and soul. Tell me do you care for me?”’ 

é I do,” she answered with a sob—“ but go, go!” 

“’Tis a wild wooing,” he said, “but a true one, my heart’s 
treasure. I loved you from the first time I saw your sweet face. 
You will be true to me, my Nell, until I can claim you?” 

I will,” she answered, weeping; “ but fly, for the love of God.” 


940 The Irish Monthly. 


é“ No more delay,” he said, clasping her in his arms. “I have 
something now to make me value life; one kiss, my precious love 
—my brave darling ; nothing but death can keep our lives apart. 
Good-bye, for awhile. Tell Father Garrett. God bless you.” 

He kissed her wet face with passionate fervour, then released 
her, and disappeared over the wall of the fort. 

Wiping away the tears of excitement, fear and happiness that 
rolled down her face, Nell descended a different side of the hill 
and directed her steps to Mona. Thoroughly exhausted, she 
arrived there, climbed the sunk fence, and tapped at the parlour 
window where the Madam was sitting alone. 

“Tt is I, Nell O'Malley,” she said, in a low voice. 

The Madam admitted her, and gazed on her in utter amaze- 
ment, as she stood in the light without hat or bonnet, her hair 
tumbled down, and covered over with mud. 

“What on earth is the matter? Has anything happened to 
Father Garrett ?”’ she exclaimed. 

“No, thank God. I'll tell you when I am able,” gasped Nell, 
putting her hand on the back of a chair. 

‘Don’t attempt to sit down in your wet clothes,” said the 
Madam. ‘Come into my room at once. My poor child, what a 
state you are in. Here, take this candle and undress at once, 
while I get you a cup of tea.”’ 

Nell was soon sitting before the fire, presenting rather a 
ourious figure in a suit of the Madam’s clothes, and related her 
adventures, to which her hostess listened with a very sad face. 

“ Father Garrett will get into trouble,” she said. “I am very 
uneasy about him, Nellie. It is altogether dreadful. God forgive 
those who have filled our poor countryboys’ heads with such 
dangerous folly.” 

“ But Father Garrett only tries to repress them,” answered 
Nell. 

“ If he were caught to-night giving them word to fly, see how 
it would be,” said the Madam. ‘“I hope to God no one was 
caught. The poor young lunatics, thinking they can turn the 
tide! My heart bleeds for them.” 

Nell and the Madam had talked over many things, when a knock 
came to the hall door, and, as a natural consequence, their hearts 
sprang into their mouths. The servant admitted two policemen, 
and with a nervousness born of Nell’s nocturnal visit, the Madam 


Through the Dark Niyht. 241 


went out to interview them. They merely requested permission 
to rest for half-an-hour by the kitchen fire; they had had a weary 
tramp through the hills, and seeing the light in the windows, 
ventured to disturb the kind-hearted mistress of Mona. 

The hospitable Madam made them welcome, ordered the 
servant to make up a good fire in the kitchen, and soon set out 
upon the table there a comfortable supper of cold meat, bread and 
ale. 


CHapTrer XL. 


VINCENT LEAVES THE COUNTRY. 


In the morning it was known all over the district that twenty 
men had been on duty on the hills. They had come on sure 
information to arrest a leader who was to have held a midnight 
review, but found nothing but the peaceful sleepers in the houses 
they thought it necessary to disturb. 

In crossing the hills much time had been lost, for the plank 
over the river had been torn away; they had to make a coneider- 
able detour, so when they arrived at the supposed lair the lion was 
gone. 

The newspapers teemed with arrests and disturbances as the 
days crept on; mistrust was in the cold, chill atmosphere. With 
troubled hearts women watched their sons and brothers. It was 
what the poor Irish have an intimate acquaintance with, a bard 
spring; and the harvest of “66 wus far below the average; the 
ghastly figure of poverty sat by many a fireless hearth; every- 
thing looked hopeless and comfortless when the March of ’67 
broke cold and ghastly over the land. 

The last Fenian explosion, the insurrection of 1867, was one 
of those frantic ebullitions of which ruined men are capable, men 
who have nothing more to lose, and who have got into a “ slough 
of despond,” in which they see no stepping-stones. A Fenian 
Council again met to make final arrangements for a great armed 
struggle, and the 4th of March was fixed on for the universal 
outburst ; but an informer sat at the board, and the Government 
were in entire possession of the intended movement of the 
sanguine rebels, 

Vou. xxvx. No 299 18 


242 The Irish Monthly. 


It was a disastrous defeat. The very elements combined to 
quell the outbreak. Such a snowstorm had not fallen on the 
island for the past hundred years, There was racing and chasing 
through whitened hills and valleys. Many a gallant steed perished 
in the brief, but hard, campaign. The troops, though they had 
barracks or pickets at night, had rather an uncomfortable time of it; 
while the unfortunate insurgents, homeless, hungry, and almost 
frozen, hid among the snow-clad hills. 

Vincent Talbot and Corney O’Brien sat in the office the night 
after the attempted rising, which had been a complete failure, in 
the city. 

Like the fair widow of Carrabas, ‘ both were silent and both 
were sad.” 

There was little pretence of business now. Vincent looked 
over letters and papers. 

é These will tell no tales,” he said, at length, flinging a bundle 
of them into the fire. ‘‘ What an end it is—what an end to 
everything; and to think of the poor fellows on the mountains! 
What a night they have! But I wish we were with them.” 

“ Where would be the use of it ?’”’ answered Corney, gloomily. 

‘Tf we had one fair fight,” said Vincent, “ one chance of facing 
the enemy! But we were trapped and betrayed on every side— 
ruined, cause, country, and prospects.” 

é What will you do, Mr. Vincent? Will fyou tell the old 
master ?”’ 

“ I don’t know what to do, or where to turn to,” said Vincent. 
é“ How can I ever tell him? Money spent, debts accumulated, 
business gone. How on earth did we spend so much? My God! 
What a mess I have made of everything !” 

" You wouldn't be long pulling up, sir, if you got the chance 
again. ’T'is the wonder of the world, though, if we aren’t suspected ; 
but we behaved cautious.’ 

é There is no fear,” said Vincent,” “Joe Smith warned us off 
in time; he knew how it would end; but it would be better for 
me be shot in a good cause than in the state I am, not knowing 
on earth what to do.” 

“Ah, cheer up, Mr. Vincent,” answered Corney, trying to 
throw off his depression; ‘‘sure the old master will stand to you, 
and you will be as good as ever you were.” 

“ He stood to me too often,” said Vincent, “he has not the 





Through the Dark Night. 243 


means people suppose, and he lost considerably in that bank 
failure this year. Everything seems to have gone wrong.” 

After some further conversation upon the annihilation of their 
dreams and their ruined fortunes, Vincent went upstairs and found 
Ethna seated in the drawing-room, trying to put aside uncomfort- 
able thoughts in the thrilling pages of romance. It was but a 
few nights after her adventures at the ball, and she had not yet 
recovered the humiliation of Philip Moore’s impassioned declara- 
tion. It had utterly shocked her innate sense of womanly purity 
as well as matronly dignity; the very idea of a married woman 
encouraging such demonstrations was revolting to her, and the 
disagreeable conviction was constantly presentixg itself that 
something in his behaviour—some levity of manner—must have 
fostered such presumption. 

“Why did you not go to Mrs. Bewley’s to-night, Ethna ?”” 
asked Vincent, as he slowly sipped his tea. 

“ Ah, balls are becoming stupid,” she replied; ‘‘it is from the 
same to the same; saying the same platitudes to the same people; 
dancing with the same partners to the same music. I am getting 
tired of it.” 

“Everything becomes weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable,”’ 
said Vincent, leaning his head upon his hands. “Is there any- 
thing at all substantial in life—anything or anyone to be 
trusted ?” 

“ Are you becoming a cynic, Vincent ?”’ answered Ethna, with 
a forced laugh, the colour slowly deepening in her cheeks, “ you 
who take everyoue on trust.” 

é“ Tt is only right such foolish confidence should be betrayed,” 
he said. “ One ought to look before he leaps. It seems to me, 
now, a8 if í was just like a blind man, who only fe/t before him. 
Ah, Ethna, we have made a great mistake.” 

‘How? Why?” she faltered, with dry lips, her guilty 
conscience giviug but one meaning to her husband’s words. 

“é We have not counted the cost of anything,” he said. “We 
have not ”— 

A knock came to the hall-door, and Lizzie Lynch came up 
with Philip Moore’s card. He wished to see Mrs. Talbot for a 
ioment. “I cannot see him,” she said, with flaming cheeks. 
“ Say I am engaged, Lizzie.”’ 

é“ Why not see him ?”’ exolaimed Vincent. “ He must have 





244 The Irish Monthy. 


something tosay. ‘Tell him to walk up.” 

In a moment Philip Moore was in the room. Vincent received 
him in his usual cordial manner. Pale and cold, Ethna sat at the 
tea-table, and acknowledged his bow. 

“ Just in time to have a oup of tea, Moore,’ 
“ Come and sit down.” 

é“ I have not time,” answered Moore in a low voice, “ neither 
have you, Mr. Talbot. I came to give you a hint, I may as well 
give a distinct one: the sooner you leave the country the better.” 

“ Leave the country,” repeated Ethna, standing up. ‘‘ What 
—what has he done P”’ 

“ He knows best himself,” said Philip Moore, coldly. 

é“ He is incapable of doing wrong, replied Ethna, passionately. 
“ What do you mean by telling him to leave the country ?” 

“éI have learned that you are a Fenian conspirator,” said 
Philip, addressing Vincent. ‘‘ You would be arrested were it 
known you were at home; you are watched for at some of your 
usual haunts. I came to warn your wife, who it was to be supposed 
was in your confidence.” 

“She was not in my confidence,” answered. Vincent; “she 
knew nothing of my proceedings.” 

é The sooner you leave the better,” said Philip. “ My brother 
knows; he will be here immediately to help you to escape. You 
have no time to lose.” 

Ethna, white to the lips, had sunk into a chair. Vincent a 
Fenian, in danger, warned to quit the country !—she could not 
grasp the horror of it. 

é You have behaved like a friend, Moore,” said Vincent. 
é“ Cheer up, Ethna; all will come right yet.” He put his arms 
about her and bent over her. “ Will you forgive me? I have 
brought great trouble upon you.” 

“Don’t leave me,” she gasped. ‘ Take me with you.” 

“You ought to make your preparations, Mr. Talbot,” said 
Philip Moore. ‘I warn you there is no time to be lost.” 

é Yes, yes, I'll prepare,” answered Vincent, “it won't take 
much time.” 

He left the room and ran downstairs to look for Corney 
O’Brien. 

“Tt is for your sake I save your husband,” said Philip Moore 
to Ethna, “it is one proof of my love for you.” 


ap 


’ said Vincent. 





Through the Dark Night. | 245 


She put out her hands with a gesture of despair and horror. 
He said no more, but went quickly down stairs, and she heard 
him close the front door after him. Vincent entered the room 
again. 

“My poor girl,” he said, taking the cold hands of his wife 
between his own. “Will you ever forgive me? I have spent 
your means and ruined your life. I—I ”’—his voice choked. 

“Take me with you, Vincent; don’t leave me,” she answered, 
in a voice scarcely audible. 

“Tt is impossible,” he said, “I have hardly enough 
money to take myself; everything is gone, Ethna, and we are 
over head and ears in debt. Oh, God! oh, God! what an end to 
all my dreams.” 

A knock came to the hall-door again, and Harry Moore ran 
quickly upstairs. 

“ Come, come, cheer up,” he cried, “this will all blow over. 
You need not be in the least uneasy, Mrs. Talbot ; I will go with 
him to Cork, and see him safe on board ship.” 

é Could I not go ?” she asked, clasping her hands. 

“No, no, not at present; we must manage to get him off 
secretly. Let your man, O’Brien, come with us, Talbot, and start 
for Beltard, he will let the Madam know. Come, now, it is time 
to be off. Believe that I will take care of him, Mrs. Talbot; he 
will come back all right to you by-and-by.” 

Vincent put his arms about his wife and kissed her pallid lips. 
She had not even the strength to respond, but when he released ' 
her and was leaving the room she gave such a cry of agony that 
he returned and clasped her again to his breast. She closed her 
arms about his neck in a passion of love and despair. 

‘‘Ethna, remember you are keeping him in danger,” said 
Henry Moore; ‘if you love him, let us go.” 

She took her arms away and pushed him towards the door. 

‘‘ Go, go,” she whispered, hoarsely. ‘‘ No more delays ’’—with 
one last kiss upon her white cheek, Vincent rushed from the room, 
and was followed out of doors by Henry Moore and Corney 
O’Brien bearing a portmanteau. 





246 The Irish Monthly. 


Cuaprer XLI. 
RUIN. 


Lizzie Lynch, weeping bitterly, went up to her mistress, who 
lay down upon the bed and turned her face to the wall. The 
cold, gray dawn stole over the city before Ethna slept; it was a 
night of bitter self-condemnation, a veil seemed to have fallen away 
from her eyes, and she grieved now, not for having to suffer, but 
for having sinned. What kind of a wife had she been to this young, 
warm-hearted, thoughtless husband ; she had lived for the eyes of 
others, not for him; she did nothing to make his home happy ; 
she was glad when he went out, so she could read her novel 
undisturbed ; she took no interest in his movements; she went 
where she wished without him. Yes, they were in debt; she 
began to realize it; was it any wonder; she never asked how 
much they could afford to spend; never calculated what their 
means were; though she knew she was careless in money matters, 
she took no thought about it; she left the management of her house 
very much to her servants; she indulged her tastes; she gratified her 
inclination for display; and led an idle, useless, frivolous existence. 

Her cheeks burned as she thought of her pitiful endeavours to 
show herself off before Philip Moore, and how that poor unmean- 
ing vanity had stimulated her into great extravagances. She was 
punished for it all, the man to whom she had given so much 
thought had spoken words that were an insult; and her neglected 
husband was gone from her, and ruined. 

The knowledge that had she been a true and tender wife, 
Vincent would never have got into trouble, added poignancy to 
her grief. She had only to exert her power over him to counteract 
any external influence; his want of confidence was begotten by 
her indifference. When they were boy and girl he used to tell 
her everything he thought, felt, and projected. She was interested 
in the relation until the shadow of another man fell between them, 
obstructing the vision and altering the position of life. 

The hours passed slowly by; she got up in the afternoon and 
lay prostrate on the sofa. Inthe evening a bustle in the lower 
part of the house roused her; her heart leapt in her bosom. Was 
it Vincent come back to her? But no, he could not return, and 
she wrung her hands. 


Through the Dark Night. 247 


The door opened and she was clasped in her mother’s arms. 
The Madam had been in Beltard when Oorney O’Brien, who had 
travelled by the night train, arrived there; she, Mr. Taylor, and 
Mr. Talbot set out at once for the city. Corney, who had a 
wholesome fear of both gentlemen, gave very indefinite information ; 
but Harry Moore had written a line in penoil telling them that 
Ethna required her mother and either of her male relations as soon 
as possible. 

Late that night Harry Moore returned and joined the two 
gentlemen in Vincent Talbot’s dining-room, He grasped the 
hand of the broken-down father. 

é All right, my dear sir,” he said, cheerily, “ he is off to 
America; I saw him safe on board. Such a lucky escape as he 
had. I was speaking to a policeman I knew, who was watching 
for possible Fenians among the emigrants, never suspecting my 
companion was one.” ) 

é“ I oan never be grateful enough to you,” answered Mr. Talbot. 
“ My poor unfortunate boy !” 

“ Oh, he will be none the worse for this,” said Harry Moore. 
“It will be a good lesson to him. Hot-headed young fellows, 
sir, easily get into mischief. Roughing it for a while will teach 
him the value of what he grew careless about. He will do well 
yet ; there is no better fellow. Ihave the greatest regard for 
him.” 

‘It was fortunate you were in town,” said Mr. Taylor. 

“I only came up on Monday. It was late last evening when 
Philip came in to me, and told me Talbot was in danger, and I 
had better try to get him out of town. I made as little delay as 
I could. They are troubled times, faith. People one would never 
suspect were deep in the conspiracy. But I think the Fenians are 
done for; they have fired their last shot.” 

The two attorneys overhauled the office, the father’s face 
becoming more haggard as they proceeded in the examination of 
Vincent’s papers. He had been so well trained to habits of order, 
that even to the end he observed a sort of system, and sufficient 
memoranda were discovered to prove that he was inextricably 
involved in debt. Ethna was appealed to, but, covered with 
shame and confusion, she had to confess her ignorance of 
everything relating to her husband’s affairs. 

“Surely dear, you looked after your bills for housekeeping,” 


248 The Intsh Monthly. 


said the Madam, who wondered at an incompetent housekeeper. 
“You saw that your butcher and your baker were paid and did 
not overcharge ? ” 

é“ I thought Vincent used to settle everything,” was Ethna’s 
answer. 

é“ Let, us make capital out of Vincent’s debts,” said Harry 
Moor; “it will injure him less to say he had to fly from his 
creditors than that he was mixed up with Fenianism.”’ 

And in an incredibly short space of time it went through the 
city that Vincent Talbot was overwhelmed with debt, and had 
fled from the country. ‘‘ No wonder,” said his acquaintances, 
é he and his wife went too fast, it was only surprising they held 
so long; a mere attorney, and she used to dress as if she had an 
estate at her back. Yes, she was handsome, men allowed “ good 
points about her—form and colour, but was up to a thing or two; 
knew how to hold her own, cheeky to no end, but a splendid 
woman, faith.” Women could not see why men admired her so 
much, she was red and white certainly, and she dressed to 
perfection ; but she was terribly fast, always baving men about 
her, going here and there as if she had neither house nor home to 
look after. ‘‘It was no wonder her husband came to grief.” 
Such were a few of the mean remarks made by the fashionable 
friends Ethna had made, for whom she lived and moved, dressed 
and posed herself, and whose admiring gaze was her ambition. 


Atriec O’Brien, 


(To be continued). 


( 249 ) 


LEAVES. 


MFRIADS and myriads plumed their glistening wings, 
As fine as any bird that soars and sings. 

As bright as fireflies or the dragon-flies, 

Or birds of paradise. 


Myriads and myriads waved their sheeny fans, 

Soft as the dove’s breast, or the pelican’s, 

And some were gold, and some were green and some 
Pink-lipped, like apple-bloom. 


A low wind tossed the plumage all one way, 
Rippled the gold feathers, and green and gray,— 
A low wind that in moving sang one song 

All day and all night long. 


Sweet honey in the leafage, and cool dew, 

A roof of stars, a tent of gold and blue. 

Silence and sound at once, and dim green light, 
To turn the gold day night. 


Some trees hung lanterns out, and some had stars, 
Silver as Hesper, and rose-red as Mars; 

A low wind flung the lanterns low and high, — 

A low wind like a sigh. 


Myriads and myriads, more in number than 
The sea’s sands, or its drops of water wan, 
Sang one Name in the rapture that is May ; 
With faces turned one way. 
KATHARINE TYNAN, 





250 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 
CHAPTER X. 


YOUNG MR. SIMPKIT’S PUZZLEMENT. 


Workmen up at the Hall! 
The dark old place will be gilt by the touch of a millionaire. 
‘TENNYSON. 


WHATEVER the High Street of Ridingdale might be on 

Saturday night, at Fair-time, and on one or two other festive 
oocasions—during the forenoon of an ordinary week-day it became 
the “abode of ancient peaoe.” Once the boys and girls of the 
elementary school had answered the call of a bell whose tone was 
as the tongue of a nagging housewife, and whose metal was 
unworthy of the name, the High Street pavements, partly flagged 
and partly cobbled, were subjected to the minimum of wear and 
tear, until noonday was tolled by another bell, one of six that 
the fine old pre-Reformation church tower was condemned to 
shelter. It may seem unfair to quarrel with a peal of bells 
because they date only from the end of the seventeenth century ; 
and indeed if their tone had been of a better quality the most 
enthusiastic antiquarian of the Dale would have declared himself 
satisfied. As it was, the whole of Ridingdale and Timington 
suffered from depression of spirits whenever the bells were pealed. 
When they were chimed for Sunday service, the bulk of the popu- 
lation slept. 

There never was a town, however small, without a grievance— 
fortunately, perhaps, for the townsfclk themselves. And a 
grievance created by circumstances more or less historical, is far 
better than one provoked by the quarrels of living men. “ Roger 
Shypleigh, of the parish of Ridingdale, Esquire, and Dame 
Elizabeth, his wife,” meant to do a kindly deed in bestowing that 
peal of bells; and a descendant of theirs, one Thomas Shypleigh, 
who in the late forties placed a clock in the tower of his parish 
church, deserved well of dwellersin the Dale. But neither Roger 
nor Thomas foresaw the full value or the true extent of their 
benefactions. Thomas, of course, knew that the giving of a 





Doings in the Dale. 251 


tongue to time ‘“‘ was wise in man” because he had read the 
“ Night Thoughts ” of the poet Young; but it never, probably, 
occurred to any member of the Shypleigh family that to give a 
population of (not quite) five thousand souls a safety-valve for the 
‘escape of disaffection might be a wiser thing in man or woman. 
Yet how many characters would have been ruined, how many 
fierce enmities fostered, how many reconciliations prevented, how 
many deadly quarrels intensified, how many moments of ennus 
prolonged, and how many idle people would have been deprived of 
their sole subject of discussion, if Roger’s bells had been melodious, 
and Thomas’s clock had kept good time! 

And yet Mr. Colpington, the chemist, was not nearly 
so grateful to the memory of the Shypleighs as one 
might have supposed, while Miss Rippell’s sentiments on 
the subject of these deceased benefactors were lacking both 
in gratitude and politeness. Now Miss Rippell’s good qualities 
were many, but without a doubt the most prominent was 
her politeness—extended as freely and graciously to the buyer 
of a halfpenny paper as to the purchaser of the latest three 
volume novel at thirty-one and six. 

To be appealed to now and again for the time o' day is a 
thing no reasonable person could object to, but to be made an 
unwilling referee in a hundred daily disputes as to the hours and 
minutes is another matter. There was young Mr. Simpkit, for 
instance, who had a gold repeater, unbounded leisure, and a very 
deficient supply of brains. Both Miss Rippell and Mr. Colpington 
were sorry for the youth, of course, and did their best to show him 
kindness and consideration; but a very young person with only 
one idea in his head, and that an imperfect one, is apt to become 
very trying and to degenerate into a nuisance of the first order. 
There were times when young Mr. Simpkit took refuge in 
Colpington’s or Miss Rippell’s shop, to escape his tormentors— 
Ridingdale idlers or rough lads whose persecutions stopped short 
at the teasing stage, for that they feared the anger of the young 
man’s father. It is however only fair to say that young Mr, 
Simpkit himself generally provoked these attacks, for his volubility 
was as great as his belief in his own power of argumentative 
chaffing. 

But a day dawned upon Ridingdale when even young Mr. 
Simpkit forgot to compare his watch with Mr. Colpington’s, and 


252 The Irish Monthly. 


neglected to hand in to Miss Rippell a written statement of the 
vagaries of the church clock—variations daily noted by him 
between the hours of nine and six. Even the bells of Ridingdale 
were ignored, and for something like a week the name of Shypleigh 
was not uttered. The one subject of interest in the Dale was Mr. 
Kittleshot’s House-warming. 

Quite early in the month of May, Billy Lethers, in his 
character as a walking book of reference on Dale doings, was at a 
premium. Neither Miss Rippell nor Mr. Colpington was appealed 
to as often as Billy the professional. Credited with accurate 
knowledge of the very latest detail of every local matter, it was 
felt that his connection with the Hall gave him a great advantage 
over the average gossip in relation to Mr. Kittleshot’s house- 
warming. It was to Billy’s honour that he never tried the illicit 
method of pumping the Ridingdale boys in order to gain desired 
scraps of information. What the lads knew they spoke of quite 
freely and simply, for they were under no promises of secrecy, and 
all that Billy had to do was to play the part of a good listener. 

During the month of April Mr. Kittleshot’s visits to Ridingdale 
Hall had been frequent. ‘Che fact was noted by the Dale and 
gave unmixed satisfaction to many. Toa few it caused anxiety. 
The Vicar of Ridingdale did not approve, and said so—in Miss 
Rippell’s shop. His wife declared that Mr. Kittleshot was 
tempting providence, and asked the prayers of several intimate 
friends that the millionaire might be preserved from the infection 
of a Popish atmosphere. Mr. Simpkit’s father—a most worthy 
person who sold honest wine and whiskey, wholesale and retail— 
ordered two thousand copies of his own tract, ““ Rome—Ridiculed, 
Refuted, and Rebuked.”” Something, however, interfered with the 
circulation of this entertaining booklet, and if it had not been for 
‘the guileless and irresponsible chatter of young Mr. Simpkit, 
Ridingdale would never have known what that something was. 

Miss Rippell’s shop was unusually full one day when young 
Mr. Simpkit entered and found the subject of general conversation 
was, as usual, Mr. Kittleshot. But on the present occasion every- 
body was mildly excited, and no wonder. The millionaire himself 
had only just left the shop after—in the words of a waiting, but 
perfectly contented customer—“ ordering pounds and pounds 
worth of things.”’ 

Asa matter of fact, Mr. Kittleshot had that day visited all 


Doings in the Dale. 253 


the principal shops in Ridingdale—by no means ‘forgetting the 
wine storesof Mr. Simpkit. And in each case he had prefaced 
his ample order with the words: “My friend Mr. Ridingdale 
recommended me to come to you.” 

Now young Mr. Simpkit was bursting with the importance of 
the news of “the very largest order, you know, my father has 
ever received,’ and exhilarated by the sight of an interested 
audience, he became more voluble than usual. In great detail he 
described Mr. Kittleshot’s demand for “ more cases of champagne, 
you know, than we have actually got in stock,” while the colossal 
order for sherry, claret gnd whiskey was clearly more than the 
brain of young Mr. Simpkit could grapple with. 

“ Father, of course, is very pleased,” the youg man continued, 
‘Sand he takes it very kind of the Squire to have mentioned his 
name to Mr. Kittleshot. But what I can’t understand is”—and 
here young Mr. Simpkit grew mysterious and dropped his voice— 
‘father’s getting in a wax with me just as I left the stores. I 
had some of father’s tracts in my pooket, you know, because he 
had asked me to distribute them all about the town. Said, you 
know, that he wanted the town flooded with them. That was the 
very word he used, you know, flooded. Well, just as I was leaving, 
a few minutes ago, he asked me what I had got in my pocket. I 
said ‘some of your tracts, father.’ He said, ‘Don't bea fool, 
now; hand them over to me.” And, you know, he took them every 
one and locked them up in his drawer. I can’t understand it at 
all. Particularly, you know, when he said over and over again 
that he wanted the town flooded with them.”’ 

Young Mr. Simpkit looked round the shop for sympathy— 
possibly also for some explanation of thisinsoluble problem. But 
several of Miss Rippell’s customers looked another way, and one 
or two moved towards the door. One elderly man laughed aloud, 
and Miss Rippell herself turned her back and began hastily t. 
replace certain scattered articles upon their shelves. 


254 The Irish Monthly. 


CuartTer XI. 


ENCHANTED GROUND. 


There marvelling stood he still, 
Because to one bough blossoms clung 
As it were May, but ripe fruit hung 
Upon the other. 
Witrtam Morris. 


Our friend Colonel Ruggerson had lived at Ridingdale ever 
since the death of his wife. He had begn a brother-officer and a 
very close friend of the Squire’s father, General Sir John 
Ridingdale, C.B., leaving the army much earlier than he wished 
in order to please his invalid wife. It was now nearly eleven years 
since Mrs. Ruggerson’s death, and during the whole of that time 
the Colonel had occupied ‘‘ The Chantry ”—a late seventeenth- 
century house said to have been built on the site of an ancient 
chapel. A cosy and picturesque building was the Chantry, stand- 
ing in its own grounds and surrounded by the high wall so dear 
to the eighteenth century mind, and so indispensable to the comfort 
of a well-to-do Englishman. The Squire used to say, teasingly, 
that, for its size, the Chantry was the most luxurious establishment 
he had ever entered—a statement the Colonel would combat with 
great energy and fierceness. 

“ Monastic isn’t the word for it,” the old soldier would contend. 
“The place is a hermitage—that’s what it is. Look at the room 
we're sitting in! [the two would be, perhaps, in what the Colonel 
called his ‘loose box’]. Out of barracks, who ever saw a 
place with so little in it? Luxury, indeed! Why, it’s not a 
patch on that cell of St. Jerome in the picture.” 

Then the Squire would get up and begin a perambulation of 
the room, mischievously making an audible catalogue of the many 
really costly things it harboured. 

‘<Item, a pair of silver candlesticks two feet in height, and worth 
a hundred and fifty pounds—probably more. Stolen originally, no 
doubt, from the altar of a church. Now in the possession of Colonel 
Ruggerson,”’ &o., &c. 

The Colonel would literally dance on his hearth-rug intheenergy 
of his protestations ; but the Squire generally proceeded with 
his inventory until Le had proved to his own satisfaction that the 


Doings in the Dale. 255 


“ Loose Box ” contained articles amounting in gross value to some 
thousands of pounds—which, as a matter of fact, it did. For though 
the Colonel was by no means a millionaire, he was really very well- 
to-do, his wife having left him the bulk of her large fortune, 
together with the furniture and appointments of a much bigger 
house than the Chantry. But just because the gallant man had 
sold a great quantity of the furniture, and also because he had 
a constitutional objection to rooms over-crowded with chairs and 
tables, and loved a luxurious plainness for its own sake, he affected 
the airs of a hermit, and convinced himself (if he could not 
convince others) that his surroundings were those of a soldier and 
an ascetic. 

It was much the same in regard to his diet. 

éI wish I could offer you some dinner,” he had said to Mr. 
Kittleshot on several occasions; ‘‘ but there's not a scrap of any- 
thing to eat in the house.” 

The first time Mr. Kittleshot heard this, he begged his host 
not to think of him in connection with dinner; but before Croesus 
could get away from the Chantry the dinner-bell rang, and the 
Colonel, murmuring something about there being ‘a bird and a 
peach,’ led the way to the dining-room. 

“ It is thirty-five years since 1 enjoyed so good a dinner,” Mr. 
Kittleshot declared as a few hours later he bade his host ‘ good- 
night.’ “Your pot-luck is better than a banquet. Your cook is 
an artist, and you—well, every man must have his joke.” 

The Colonel was speechless with astonishment. 

“ Nothing but a bird and a peach,” he muttered to himself 
when his guest had gone, “‘ and the man carries on like that! There's 
a conspiracy abroad to make me out a gourmet !”’ 

On the second of these occasions Mr. Kittleshot implored the 
Colonel to lend him his cook—“ for one night only.” The old 
soldier’s amazement, real or affected, was great. 

Perhaps the crowning grievance of the Colonel’s life was the 
Squire’s refusal to dine at the Chantry oftener than once or twice 
a month. Another great subject of dispute between the two 
friends, and one that made the Colonel specially irate, was 
Ridingdale’s refusal to allow his boys the run of the Chantry 
whenever they went into the village. In a house like the 
Squire’s where the family was big and the number of servants 
very small, the errands were numerous, and a day seldom passed 





256 The Irish Monthly. 


without the appearance in Ridingdale High Street of one or more 
of the boys from the Hall. Now in coming from the Hall one 
cannot get into the High Street without passing the Chantry, and 
(for a long time, at least) to pass the Colonel’s house without calling 
was, for a Ridingdale boy, impossible. The most terrible threats 
were fulminated against the lad, ‘‘so lost to the sense of what was 
right and fitting” as to evade the Colonel’s hospitality ; so that 
Hilary and his brothers felt there was nothing for it but to regard 
the Chantry as a second home. 

This, however, greatly interfered with the progress of errands, 
and the Squire was at length obliged to interfere in his own 
interests and in that of his household. Moreover, Mrs. Ridingdale 
found that the dispensing of powders was becoming quite a common 
sequel to a high tea at the Chantry, and the end of it was that 
& compromise was made with the Colonel, to his great disgust, 
and the visits of the boys reduced to one in the week. 

As an aider and abettor of the Colonel’s hospitality, Mrs. 
White, his housekeeper, was easily convicted. Her master never 
touched sweets or pastry, and yet whenever the Ridingdale boys 
appeared, the Chantry was immediately transformed into a 
confectioner’s shop. There were rooms in the house that Mrs. 
White would allow no visitor to enter; yet the most sacred 
of these apartments, the big white drawingroom, was cheerfully 
given over to the tender mercies of six or seven clog-shod lads. 
This all-powerful housekeeper was wont greatly to resent visits made 
before noon, or after a certain hour in the evening—Mr. Kittleshot, 
to his great umusement, was already in possession of a piece of 
Mrs. White’s mind; but, somehow or other, Messrs. Hilary & Co. 
were welcome at any hour, and the rough side of the old lady’s 
tongue was held in reserve for older and more hardened offenders. 

But when the weather was fine and warm, the Colonel had 
one frequent guest upon whom no embargo had been laid, and 
whose visits neither father or mother wished to restrict. When the 
master of the Chantry was at home, and he was seldom away, 
little Sweetie Ridingdale was one of his constant companions. 
The Squire greatly deprecated the giving of too many presents to 
his boys, but whatever was for the convenience or the amusement 
of his blind child was received from the Colonel with gratitude. 
So Sweetie had an equipage fit for a prince—a wheeled chair drawn 
by willing brothers, and not unfrequently, when the journey 


Doings in the Dale, 257 


would have interfered with lessons, by the ever-ready Billy 
Lethers. Sweetie had many devoted slaves, and, as the Squire 
said, they were all anxious to be bound to the wheels of his 
chariot. 

The Chantry had peculiar attractions for Sweetic. There was 
“ God-father ” himself to begin with. The Colonel was kindness 
itself to all the Ridingdale youngsters, but towards the elder boys he 
often affected the tone and manner of a martinet ; though not one 
of them was taken in by this attitude, saving perhaps at tie time 
of drill when he sometimes dealt out original and fantastical 
punishments. All the old soldier’s tenderness seemed to be 
reserved for Sweetie. 

The blind child had his own well-oushioned nook in the Loose 
Box, where he would lie hour after hour listening to the Colonel’s 
stories—eometimes of marvellous doings in the mystical East, but, 
more frequently, selected tales from the Arabian Nights, or delicate 
fairy legends, carefully prepared by his god-father from the latest 
book that dealt with that fascinating lore. Moreover, the Colonel 
possessed the very unmilitary accomplishment of organ-playing, 
and the instrument that stood in the entrance hall could, under its 
owner’s touch, transform the Chantry into a church, a battlefield, 
or an enchanted palace. 

Blessed with the sense of sight, the little child might have 
been the genius of kis family, for his intelligence was much beyond 
his years, and his marvellous display of memory often frightened 
the solicitous Colonel. As he grew older, Sweetie’s constitution 
seemed ever more delicate and fragile, and his god-father had a 
fixed idea that the little one’s days would be few and short. In 
this, however, he was mistaken. Every great expert that the 
Colonel called in declared that, while the blindness was hopelessly 
incurable, and the constitution exceedingly delicate, the child was 
organically sound and with care his life might be a long one. As 
indeed it was. 

The atmosphere of his own home was very sweet to the blind boy, 
and, if it had not been for the Colonel, he would have been 
content never to leave it. But Ridingdale Hall was essentially 
a place of stir, bustle, and activity, a house where the father found 
the day all too short for the work that won his children’s bread, 
and the mother had sometimes more than she could do in 
dispensing that same bread and in seeing that her sons and 

Vor. xxw. No 299 | 19 


258 The Irish Monthly. 


daughters were decently clothed. Then, although every brother 
and sister was from time to time at Sweetie’s service, there were 
necessarily many lessons and games and occupations of various 
kinds, in which the blind boy could have no part; so that some 
lonely hours would have fallen to the little man but for the 
constant kindness of the Colonel. Also a sort of constitutional 
shrinking from anything like a crowd was sometimes shown by 
the afflicted child, and though he could be quite content and happy 
in the society of any one or two of his brothers, he showed a 
certain restlessness when many of them were together, and a 
pathetic anxiety to get away into some quiet corner where, as he 
put it, he could “ talk about things with somebody.” 

Perhaps this “talking about things” was one of the most 
interesting features of his visits to the Uhantry. 

é Talking to Sweetie over the luncheon table means having 
your wits about you,” the Colonel said. 

Mr. Kittleshot called one day while the two were at their one 
o'clock meal, and, hearing voices in the dining-room, would not 
allow the servant to announce him. But before he turned away, 
promising to call a little later, he saw through the half-opened 
door the Colonel at one end of the table listening with eager and 
almost reverential attention to the little one sitting at the other 
eud, his delicate food almost neglected, his sightless eyes raised to 
the ceiling while in slow and dreamy but most accurate language 
he put a question to his host. 

The impression left upon Mr. Kittleshot’s mind was vivid and 
lasting. He had more than once seen that rapt look on the child’s 
face, and the attitude an artist would have called “ Inspiration ;” 
but the Colonel’s softened expression and worshipful attention 
was something new to the millionaire. 


Doings in the Dale. 259 
Cuapter XII. 
THE LOOMING OF THE BIRCH. 


A race of real children ; not too wise, 
Too learned, or too good; but wanton, fresh, 
And banded up and down, by love and hate; 
Not unresentful where self-justified ; 
Fierce, moody, patient, venturous, modest, shy ; 
Mad at their sports like withered leaves in winds; 
Though doing wrong and suffering, and fu!l oft 
Bending beneath our life’s mysterious weight 
Of pain and doubt and fear, yet yielding not 
In happiness to the happiest on earth. 

‘W oRDsWokPH. 


On a certain evening in May, Sniggery was crowded. Every 
member of the Ridingdale parliament of boys was in his place, 
save one, and the House was almost inconveniently full. The 
Speaker was Hilary. 

“Tt’s not a bit of good making a fuss about the thing,” he was 
saying. ‘‘ We’re all booked for the warming-pan business and 
we'd better make the best of it.” 

é It's not the bun-fights J object to,” began Harry,—“ though, 
if Croesus is going to entertain all the school-children of Hardlow 
as wellas of Timington and Ridingdale, the job will bea big 
one ; it’s the swell garden-party that frightens me.” 

“ Ah, yes,” murmured the quiet George who was sitting on the 
step of Sniggery, watching the rising of the young May moon, 
“yes, the swell garden-party ! “That's the staggerer !” 

Willie Murrington looked from one foster-brother to another 
with an expression which said quite plainly: “ Well, if I have to 
go to this dreaded garden-party, you will take care of me, won't 
you P” 

é“ There will be strawberries and cream !” put in the ten 
year old Gareth, “: Jane told me.” 

“Little pig!” ejaculated Harry laughingly. “ The middle 
of June is rather early for strawberries, Garry. But if Jane 
says s0——” 

“And there’ll be Punch and Judy,” interrupted Alfred. 
“ William Lethers told me to-day, and he knows.” 

“Lance thinks—that is, he hopes—there’ll be a clown,” 
Gareth went on; “ but Jane says clowns are low.” 


260 The Irish Monthly. 


“Well,” laughed Hilary, “I am glad some of you are pleased 
with the prospect, and I’ve no doubt we shall all be as jolly as 
possible when the thing comes off.” 

“é How we miss Lance,” Harry said after a pause. “There's 
nobody to do ‘the young man eloquent’ to-night. Wonder if 
there’s any chance of begging him off ?” 

é Im afraid not,” Hilary answered a little sadly. “ Might 
have been all over by this if he’d owned up at the beginning, 
As it is, he'll have a bad night and wake up only to face the 
rod.” : 

It is not true that sorrows never come singly, but that they 
sometimes come in battalions is an unaccountable fact. Lance 
had begun the day badly. ising late, he had gone off to Mass 
after a toilet of so imperfect a character that when his father 
overtook him he stood self-convicted. The rectification of this 
error took up most of the ‘‘ looking-over ” time between breakfast 
and school. and led, first to an altercation with Jane, and after- 
wards to a reprimand from his father for badly prepared lessons. 

It was while the Squire was taking his son to task, and pressing 
for an explanation as to this catalogue of naughtiness that the 
father scented a strong smell of stale tobacco, an odour that 
seemed .o arise from the pocket of Lance’s jacket. Asked if he 
had any tobacco, the boy produced the charred half of a villainous 
cigar. 

“ How did you get this?” the Squire asked. 

‘‘ Tt was given to me, father.” 

‘In the house or outside?” 

Lance hesitated. He knew what his father meant very well, 
but for several seconds the temptation to prevaricate was strong. 
It had been given to him in the park, not in the house; but by 
outside the Squire meant the village. At length the boy said: 

“ Here.” 

The father did not ask by whom. He knew there was only 
one member of the household who would offer tobacco to a young 
boy like Lance. That person was Algernon Bhutleigh. 

The Squire was in a dilemma concerning the son of the 
absconding bank manager. The lad did not know the whole 
truth about his father—who seemed to have placed himself beyond 
the reach of justice—nor did he know the extent of his mother’s 
poverty, and the Squire very naturally shrank from speaking to 


ill. 





Doings in the Dale. 261 


him of either. The idea of a long visit to Ridingdale Hall had 
given the youngster a certain satisfaction ; but he never guessed 
that he was undergoing a kind of probation, and that if his conduct 
proved satisfactory the Squire would adopt him as he had adopted 
Willie Murrington. Unfortunately young Bhutleigh’s stay at 
the Hall had been marked by a good deal of discontent and not a 
little downright disobedience. The Squire was not a fanatic on the 
subject of smoking, but in a young boy he exceedingly disliked 
the assumption of a rakish air, an affectation of the manners of a 
Piccadilly club-man, and the speech of a music-hall habitué, 
Fortunately, the healthy public feeling that prevailed among the 
Ridingdale boys was much too strong to be immediately affected 
by one individual, and it was soon made olear to young Bhutleigh 
that the very things he prided himself upon most were what they 
held in contempt. Nevertheless the Squire (who had looked after 
Algernon far more sharply than the boy suspected) was beginning 
to be fearful of possible bad influences, and his recent interview 
with Lance increased the father’s anxiety. 

The boys in Sniggery, enjoying the beauty of the May twilight, 
were unconscious of the fact that Algernon Bhutleigh, taking 
advantage of a lively discussion started by Hilary, had slipped 
away and was hiding in the shrubbery in order to enjoy (?) a 
cheap cigar. 

They were also unaware of an interview then going on in their 
father’s study. 

At the end of morning schools, Mr. Ridingdale had told Lance 
to withdraw himself from the rest, and to ask for punishment as 
soon as he was convinced of his laziness and disobedience. The 
end of night studies came, and still Lance had not “ owned up.” 
But, just as the Squire was beginning to think of lighting the 
lamp on his writing-table, the oulprit entered. 

‘Well, Lance?” 

‘“‘T’ve come, please father.” 

“So I perceive,” said Mr. Ridingdale striking a match and 
putting it to the lamp; “but you needn’t stand so far off.” 

Lance, who had remained just inside the door, came a little 
nearer to the writing-table. As he did so, he raised so pale a face 
to his father that the latter was almost startled into an exclamation. 
Checking himself in time, Mr. Ridingdale sat down and beckoned 
his son to step nearer to the light. 


262 The Irish Monthy. 


“ Have you come to ask for punishment, Lance P” 

The boy turned his head away, but his “yes, father,’ 
clear and distinct in spite of the suppressed sob. 

“ And you are sorry ?” 

“ Yes, father.” 

“What is it to be, or rather—how many? For you know, 
Lance, there are four or five distinct offences. You know also 
that for smoking and anything like rudeness to servants, it must 
be the birch.” 

é“ IT know, father.” 

But the Squire had never before seen his fourth son tremble so 
violently. The boy was standing olose to his father’s chair now, 
and one small inky hand lay on the writing-table. Mr. Ridingdale 
thought it looked strangely white, and touching it for a moment 
discovered that it was cold asice. But he made no comment upon 
this and only asked— 

‘Well then, Lance, the only thing you have to settle is—how 
many strokes.” 

“Tt ought tobe . . . twelve . . . this time.” 

“Yes, I think it ought.” 

** Only, father —— ” 

“ Only what ?” 

“ Well, father, if you sould give me six to-night . . . and 
six to-morrow—— ” 

“ But why divide it? Much better to get it over at once—eh P”” 

The pale face twitched, and the trembling inoreased. 

"Al right, father,”’ the boy said with a great effort; then 
after a pause he added: “ but will you please strap me very 
tight P” 

The Squire looked at his son with surprise. Lance had always 
taken his punishment so well—perhaps because during the past 
year he had been in trouble oftener than his brothers. 

é Tell me, Lance,’’ he said turning up the lamp and examining 
the boy’s face “ are you suffering to-night P”” 

“ Oh, father,” he sobbed, but making very little noise in his 
crying, “if you would put it off till to-morrow—all of it, I mean. 
I've got such an awful headache. Had it all day—when I got up. 
Honour bright, father, I’m not begging off. I don’t want you to 
let me off. Fact, [ wouldn’t have mentioned it if you hadn't 

~“d me.” 


> was 


Doings sn the Dale. 263 


The Squire did not say much. He knew that a certain rank 
cigar had started his boy’s illness, and that the troubles of the day 
had worsened the headache. ‘here was no doubt as to the present 
suffering. The peony-cheeked Lance was scarcely recognisable in 
the pallid-faced, trembling boy in front of him. 

é“ Your punishment will be over, Lance, when the headache is 
better. And that I hope will be to-morrow morning.” 

é“ You don’t mean, father, that I’m not to be—— ” 

é“ Yes, Lance, I mean that. Twenty-four hours of headache 
and heart-ache must suffice. Go to bed now, my dear. Sleep will 
take away the pain.” 

Lance had buried his head upon his father’s shoulder. 

“ Father, I wii? try hard after this,” he sobbed. 

“‘T know you will, Lance.” 

And he did—though sometimes with only a mitigated success. 
Like the grown-up children of the great All-Father. 

The May twilight had deepened, and the boys in Sniggery were 
waiting for the eight o’clock supper bell. A figure appeared c - 
the terrace and began to cross the lawn—more slowly than Lancs 
was wont todo. Then a pale but smiling face showed itself i~ 
the doorway of Sniggery, and was greeted with a chorus of anxiou. 
enquiries. 

“Is it over, Lance P”’ 

“ Come in, poor old chap! ” 

“ How did you get on P” 

“Is everything all right again P ” 

“ Bravo, Lance. Hurrah! ”’ 

“I’ve come only for a minute,” said Lance in a low tone, 
é Father said I might run and tell you, because you’d be jollier 
afterwards.” 

The boy told his story very shortly—feeling a little mean the 
while, but knowing that his brothers would not misunderstand. 
The loud hurrahs at the end did not help to lessen the narrator’s 
headache. 

But when many iron-shod feet began to stamp on the floor of 
Sniggery in an excess of congratulatory enthusiasm, the petals of 
a great bough of whitethorn (placed over the image of the Holy 
Boy) were all loosened, and the snowy, scented shower fell upon 
the happy lads like a benediction. Davin BEARNE, 8.J, 

(To be continued). 





( 264.) 


MARY’S MONTH. 


T is in the month of Mary 
That the hawthorn boughs are white, 

That the violets frail scent wood and vale, 

And the buttercups are bright. 
It is in the month of Mary 

The lark sings loud and clear 
A rapturous strain ’tis almost pain 

For the heart of man to hear. 


It is in the month of Mary 
The long day comes and goes 


In cloudless light of amber bright 
And of jasper, pearl, and rose. 

It is in the month of Mary 
The chestnut cressets glow, 

That a laughing rune in the sunbright noon 
The brooks sing as they flow. 


It is in the month of Mary, 
When all the world is fair, 

When Mary’s praise fills the livelong days, 
That God grants many a prayer. 

It is in the month of Mary, 
When all the world is gay, 

Earth’s sorrows seem but a passing dream, 
And Heaven not far away. 


MaaGpaLen Rook. 


( 265 ) 


EASTER TUESDAY AT FRASCATI. 
A Sermon AND A FESTA. 
April 20th, 1897. 


Such a glorious morning, with long shafts of sunlight streaming 
in the moment the shutters were opened; it would have been 
impossible not to get up after seeing all that outside radiance, 
even if we had not planned our delightful expedition to Frascati 
for to-day ! 

Besides, in Rome, so many things distract one and call one to 
the window. First, the goat shepherd, very quaint and picturesque, 
with long hair falling on his shoulders, playing a faint sad little 
tune on his pipe, as he drives his dainty, unruly flock out to feed 
in the Campagna. They always pass us about eight o’clock, for, 
being so near the Porta del Popolo, we see them when they are all 
collected and starting for the day. 

This morning, too, the Piazza was alive with soldiers returning 
from some early drill with gay fanfares and beat of drum. Í 
never can resist going on to the balcony to see the Bersaglieri 
running past in their pretty dark uniforms. 

To-day, however, there was not much time for dallying, as our 
train left soon after 9 o’clock. We were three altogether, myself, 
pretty Lady H— and her very practical cousin, Miss R—-, 
to whom we were both delighted to give ourselves “ in charge,” 
entrusting to her all the disagreeable money matters such as taking 
of tickets, etc. It sounds rather a selfish proceeding, but she likes 
all those little, useful details, and we are ready to obey like lambs, 
so it really suits us all. 

The station was crowded, and, as is usual when one has to do 
with Italian officials, we were treated with the utmost severity 
and sternly penned off until the train came puffing in. At length, 
after the customary scrimmage, we get places in a carriage with 
some nice looking Italians. I lean back to enjoy the Cam- 
pagna, always so strangely, enticingly beautiful. I do not know 
when it fascinates me most, exquisite, opal-tinted, and mysterious 
as it is in the evening with its soft distances melting into a far 





266 The Irish Month. 


horizon, or brilliant as it is this morning, the fresh green 
throwing up the clear red line of aqueducts bathed in the April 
sunshine. Even the sunlight, however, cannot give life and 
gaiety to this great expanse which is imposing by its very desola- 
tion, covering as with a pall so much dead and forgotten greatness 
aud lapping the Eternal City round with its strong silence and 
brooding melancholy. 

I am thinking so much of all this, that speech seems super- 
fluous until Miss R—— commands me to get some information 
from our fellow companions as to Padre Agostino’s preaching. 
She would be quite willing to undertake the [talians herself, but 
her knowledge of the language, although invaluable for the dis- 
comfiture and rout of over-rapacious cab-drivers and shopmen, 18 
not to be trusted in a long conversation, so I throw myself into 
the breach. They are very intelligent and enthusiastic over his 
style. It appears that they have often come out to hear him 
during Lent, and that this is to be his fareweil sermon. Gradually 
the Campagna breaks into little patches of glowing colza, and 
soon the bare vine-clad hills warn us that our destination is near. 
Those dear, patient vines, shorn of all their natural grace aud 
loveliness, crucified against hard stakes, always cut and lopped 
and ill-treated, and repaying all this unkindness by rich harvests 
of green and purple excellence! The streets of the little town 
are alive with people; they are streaming up the steps from the 
station and are standing in animated groups in the piazza; for 
to-day is the birthday of Frascati, and for such a festa the con- 
tadini ofall the neighbouring villages have come over in the new 
bravery of their best garments. 

We elbow our way up the steps of the Cuthedral, which are 
black with people; and with infinite difficulty we get inside the 
brown leather curtain, which hangs across the door, and then turn 
to each other in dismay! The church is simply packed, nothing 
to be seen but a sea of heads; of hearing there is nut the remotest 
chance, go we come away again to try the sacristry door. A dear 
old priest comes out, and on hearing that we come from Rome 
and that Iam a Catholic, he takes us under his protection and 
eventually gets us seats in a side chapel. It is a wonderful 
sight, this immense crowd so silent and attentive. People are 
sitting on all the altar steps, on the rails, everywhere in fact that 
they can possibly squeeze in, and all praying with extreme 


el 


Easter Tuesday at Frascati. 267 


vour. Surely those who say that religious feeling and devotion 
are dying out in Italy are mistaken! It is not really the oase, 
though, seeing the disbelief fostered by most of those in charge 
of education, one wonders that there is any faith left. 

Why do people try in the name of modern thought to argue 
that religion is superfluous, when the only thing which makes life 
endurable, specially in the poverty aud misery which seems inevi- 
table in the present state of affairs, is the hope of heaven? KHe- 
signation is the one alleviation of those whose lot is cast in rough 
places and who oan see no chance, humanly speaking, of bettering 
their condition. Much good, no doubt, is being done here, as in 
other countries, in the name of mercy and philanthropy ; but 
neither here ncr elsewhere will there be a Millennium, and mean- 
while it is the want of hope and faith which fosters, not to say 
causes, anarchy and revolution. 

This is all beside the point, perhaps, but the appeal in all those 
gentle, patient faces, made one pray that the cloud might lighten 
a little. 

Presently Padre Agostino appeared in the pulpit, a man past 
50, wearing the Franciscan habit, with a rough, rather expression- 
less face, and curious quick utterance. At first I was disappointed ; 
the voice was so unchanging and rather monotonous in spite of 
the rapid flow of words. None of the graces of elooution as we 
understand them, were there, and very little variety of tone or 
inflection. Presently, however, and even as this passed through 
my mind, I fell under the spell, as does everyone who hears him, 
aud then Í had no more time to judge or think, or analyse, I was 
so carried away by the torrent of eloquence. The words came 
rushing out like a mighty stream, so sonorous and rich and full, 
and yet very simple and earnest. It really seemed as if he had 
a message to deliver and gave it with all his heart. Tho ser- 
mon was on justice, charity, and peace; and indeed if these were 
universally practised, this world would be an outer court of 
Heaven. He dwelt specially on that sweet “ pace ” or serenity 
which might almost be termed the atmosphere of the soul, but 
which is only to be acquired and maintained by constant effort ; 
that “ peace which passeth all understanding,” the longing for 
which is surely a proof of our immortality. Afterwards he 
lthanked the congregation for the patience with which they had 
istened to him during Lent, and said goodbye to them very 





968 ‘The Irish Monthly. 


touchingly, and then ended by raising up the crucifix to bless all 
those present. The church emptied very slowly, so I missed 
seeing the Padre again ; he slipped away through a side door into 
a carriage which was waiting, The enthusiasm about him is so 
immense that he always has to escape at once in order to avoid 

being mobbed by his too emotional hearers. When we got out 
into the Piazza I regret to say that “lunch ” was the first word 

that escaped our lips; and, guided by Miss R——, we made our 

way to a dear little albergo, not at all fashionable, but exquisitely 
neat and clean, where we hada delicious meal served in a big 

dark room upstairs. Then arose the question what to do next. 

But, as Lady H. never will make up her mind to anything, we 

just drifted out of the inn and up a little tortuous narrow lane be- 

tween high walls till we reached the great wrought-iron gates of 

the Aldobrandini Villa. These, although looking so formidable, 

are only guarded by a gentle mannered custode who admitted us 

in exchange for half a lira, and then we were at liberty to wander 

at our own sweet will over the soft shorn turf and under the deep 

cool shadow thrown by a grove of giant ilexes, which stand mo- 

tionless as grim tall sentinels, their knotted and gnarled branches 
writhing like limbs in pain. Then on, past the Villa itself which 

was closed ; but this left us indifferent, as last time we had wan- 

dered through the large cool rooms where one’s steps re-echo on 

the tessellated pavements; besides, to-day was so lovely that it 

would have been a sin to go indoors. 

Opposite the Villa the fountains, built all up the slope of the 
hill, were splashing in the sunlight, the water leaping and dancing 
from one stone ledge to another, just into the brown shell-shaped 
basins, and then out again, sparkling and glimmering like a silver 
ribbon twined through the verdure. The fountains are, no doubt, 
rococo and in bad taste, too elaborate and artificial, and here and 
there the painted stucco-work is peeling off the sea-gods and 
tritons, but in this brilliant southern light they somehow just 
suit the scene, which is full of fantastic grace and charm. In 
this favoured land even decay has a certain delicate pathos of its 
own. 
We olimbed the stone steps which run up at either side, and 
dipped our hands idly in the murmuring water; and then after a 
while of drowsy content we wandered down by the great wall, 
where pink and crimson roses rioted in a tangle of scented loveli- 


Easter Tuesday at Frascats. 269 


ness near a blossoming Judas tree, rearing itself aluft in all the 
splendour of its plumed purple; and then oh! joy and wonder, 
we found an open gate into the garden! A veritable kingdom of 
delight this, where one could just kneel and thrust one’s hands 
into the cool green foliage of lily of the valley, and pick masses 
of their dainty perfumed blooms, to which add great tufts of blue 
forget-me-not and tall spikes of golden irises, and to that again 
white lilac and frothy guelder roses till one’s arms ached with the 
fragrant load. 

In vain Miss R. threatened us with long languishing in a 
foreign goal. We paid no heed, and at last she was merciful and 
helped us to tie them up; and finally we passed through the 
frowning portals unmolested, even the custode having disappeared 
—probably gone to the Festa. When we reached the lane out- 
side, we found a never-ending stream going in that direction, 
the men swinging along with rapid strides, talking to the girls, 
who were laughing and chattering, showing their white teeth and 
dancing eyes, their coloured neckerchiefs and gay print gowns, 
making a patch of brightness against the grey walls. Here and 
there a cheerful-looking donkey, laden with children, was being 
urged up the hill, whilst the funniest sight of all was a young 
priest or clerical student who, with soutane flying, bestrode askit- 
tish mountain pony which he sat with infinite difficulty, scarcely 
able to keep his buckled shoes in his rough stirrups of knotted 
cord, All this gaiety was infectious, and we all simultaneously 
oried “: Let us, too, go to Tusculum !” 

No sooner said than done. Down the hill we ran and found a 
carriage with a good-looking pair of horses in the Piazza, which 
we approached and finally entered after a severe souffle between 
Miss R. and the coachman anent the buona-mano. 

I doubt even now if she would have come off victorious but 
that another carriage drove up at that moment eager for prey, 
which, of coure, settled the matter. The drive was too beautiful 
for words. First through the park-like gardens of the Villa Lan- 
ciolotti, then up, leaving Mondragone on our left, on, on ever up- 
wards through fragrant whispering woods of olive and beech and 
chestnut, till we reache! a grassy road bordered by tall cypress es, 
‘where ever new views of Rome and the Campagna unfolded 
themselves before us, whilst in the foreground glimmered and 
shone the red roofs and grey towers of Frascati! It is all so historic, 


270 The Irish Monthly. 


every inch of the ground one looks upon! Far away the 
dazzling streak of sea against the sky shows where distant Ostia 
used to display her pride and splendour when she was port to the 
mistress of the world; whilst quite near almost at our feet is the 
site of Horace’s Sabine farm. Above on the blue hills Rocca di 
Papa and other white villages nestle to the mountain-side like 
snow-flakes on a dark rock. — 

The further up we climb the lovelier the scenery ; range upon 
range of blue and purple hills open out before us, their near slopes 
thickly wooded, whilst the further peaks are rugged and bare. 

It was so steep that we had todoa good bit of walking, but 
none of us minded, as the flowers by the way were simply too ex- 
quisite. The fields and hedges were full of them. Such a luxury 
of honeysuckles, poppies and daisies, such wealth of red orchids 
and oyclamen with its faint elusive perfume, and many-tinted 
anemones, periwinkle, wild mignonette, and a host of other kinds; 
here and there, too, flaunted hugh bushes of yellow broom 
scattering on the balmy air their heavy sweetness which makes 
one think of ripe apricots. And over all there was the subdued 
hum of countless insects, hovering with drowsy content over the 
sun-kissed blossoms. The whole scene was almost unreal, like an 
exquisite poem, or some glad strain of music. It made me think 
of the enamelled meads of the “ Charfreitagezauber ” in Parsifal, 
and I could almost fancy the young knight, spectre-pale and 
weary, yet victorious from many combats, returning by this very 
road to the Castlo of the Holy Grail. 

Arrived at our destination we found a grove of walnut trees 
under which a sort of fair was being held, at least there were 
many booths of eatables, long rolls of bread and rounds of cheese, 
with other delicacies such as sugar hearts and the inevitable 
Maritozzis (delicious Lenten buns made with oil), and tables 
heaped up with the cheaper kinds of fruit, green almonds and 
bright yellow loquats, and (last but not least) the homely orange. 
The wine vendors were doing a roaring trade, as was evident by 
the long-necked bottles of country wine which were being drunk 
by the gaily-attired groups under the trees. The people all seemed 
to be thoroughly enjoying this al fresco entertainment, but to the 
classic remains all round them they paid but scant attention, 
And yet, here at our very feet ran the old Roman roadway, where 
we could distinctly see the marks made by the chariot wheels in 


Easter Tuesday at Frascati. 27 | 


the huge paving stones, whilst a little further on we came upon 
the perfect little theatre, tier upon&tier complete and wonderfully 
preserved, the places that used to be filled with an eager brilliant 
crowd, now given over to a band of school children, who sang and 


. chattered on, unawed by all the long-dead grandeur of the 


past. . 

It was a curious contrast, not without a certain mute cynicism, 
all those simple country folk holding their festival in this spot, 
where of the old grand race that made it, nothing now remains 
save a memory. How true it is that “ tout lasse, tout’ passe, tout 
casse!’’ Time is inexorable, and so is the law of change, and we 
know, though the contemplation of these changes may make us 
sad for the moment, that all things work themselves out by de- 
grees to fresh harmony, and that our little human lives, these few 
brief unfinished moments we can call our own, are part of a vast 
scheme of which we shall one day know the meaning and 
the end. 

Besides ourselves there were no other forestiere up there, so we 
felt quite in another world, and would gladly have lingered, 
studying the rural graces of the scene, but that Miss R.’s watch 
called us toorder. As it was, we had only a few minutes to spare, 
by the time we had once more driven through the sylvan woods 
to Frascati, just long enough to get some coffee before making for 
the train. The sun was sending long slanting, almost level rays 
of light across the Campagna as we steamed along, and the whole 
air seemed to be full of a subdued radiance, which rested tenderly 
on vineyards, colza fields. and Campagna alike, veiling them all 
as with a mysterious garment. 

The aqueducts now stood ‘out dark against a glowing pink 
background, and here and there a patch of water mirrored the 
sunset above, which gradually changed from flame-colour to crim- 
son, and?then died away in a sea of primrose and pale green, 
broken by dark rifts of jagged purple. As we went on the moon 
slowly/swam into sight in a canopy of blue ether, cold and calm 
and beautiful; and I was just lost in a dream, marvelling at these 
shifting effects of, light ’and shade, when all too soon the dark 
walls came into view, and the cries of ““ Roma, Roma-a! ”” warned 
us that we were at our journey’s end. And alas! with the final 
jolts of the train, away fly all my beautiful intangible dreams! 
I cannot call them back again, though I try to catch them, dim 


272 The Irwh Monthly. 


wraiths born of mist and moonshine, as they float away into the 
distance. I almost see them disappearing, and hear them mock- 
ing me with faint, voiceless mirth, as they vanish back to that 
vague cloudland where all illusions dwell. 


KATHLEEN BALFE. 


AT TWICKENHAM. 


HERE’S a road athwart the gardens 
Where your London lilies grow, 
All ill-kept, the clod but hardens 
Where the market-waggons go, 
Yestermorn a rain-pool lurked there, 
Who would pass were at a loss; 
‘‘ Friend,” said I to one who worked there, 
‘Soon we'll need a bridge across.” 


He that toiled, a Munster peasant, 
(Fifty years had left him young) 
Made reply with accent pleasant, 
Sparkling eye, and ready tongue; 
“Bar, the path will soon be dry t’ye— 
é In the breeze the branches toss ; 
‘* Give an hour to God Almighty, 
‘An’ He'll make a bridge across.” 


Home of Fancy’s glinting fountains, 

Laughing Erin, land of woe, 
Land of faith that moveth mountains, 

Jesting aye at every foe. 
Grieve not, Mother, when they sigh t’ye, 

“Golden hope hath proven dross ”’ ; 
Give His hour to God Almighty— 
' He will build His bridge across. 

Jou» Hannon. 


( 278 ) 


CLAVIS ACROSTICA. 


A Kery to “ Dustin Acrosrtics.”’ 


Parr XY. 


PPE well known London Society journal, Zhe World, pro- 

posed certain double aocrostics lately with fifty pounds to 
be distributed as prises: among the successful solvers. It was 
announced in March, 1898, that of this amount nearly forty 
pounds had been won by citizens of Dublin; and we noticed 
among the prize-winners a name that stands higk among the 
authors of our “ Dublin Acrostics.” 

We are going to make a change in our manner of presenting 
the answers to these ingenious jeur d’esprit. The answers to all 
of them we possess in the handwriting of Mr. Robert Reeves, 
Q.C., who acted as secretary to the clique of barristers and others 
who conspired twenty or thirty years ago in concocting and then 
publishing the dainty little volume that we have named so often 
and descrited more than once. We are also in a certain way the 
residuary legatee in literary matters of two of the most dis- 
tinguished of the band. We therefore have felt authorised, and 
almost bound, to make the revelations that we have done, and to 
give these “ Dublin Acrostics ” a new lease of life. 

We have not, however, like Zhe World, invited our readers to 
compete for fifty pounds in prizes. A few priests and doctors— 
no lawyers—have shown great ingenuity in solving these subtle 
exercises of wit and knewledge, one sending his solutions all the 
way from India. But we shall probably consult for the con- 
venience of the greater number if we do not delay the answers for 
a month but give them on the spot. Few can refer back toa 
magazine a month old. The conscientious student can refrain 
from looking at the answer till he has made first his own honest 
attempt—as good children used to do with their “ sums” in 
Arithmetic long ago. 

As among the deceased authors of “ Dublin Aocrostics ” were 
such men of mark as Judge O’Hagan, Dr. Russell of Maynooth, 
and Baron Fitzgerald (the latest to die), Lord Justice Fitzgibbon 
will, we trust, not be displeased with us for identifying him as 

Vow. xxvi. No. 299, 20 


274 The Irish Monthly 


their colleague in this graceful pastime, and the author of the 
Acrostic which we left unsolved last month. 
Fleeting, fierce, of brief endurance, 
We’re united in assurance. 

He would be a clever man who could dispense with “ lights ” 
and name off hand the two words here described. The 
é lights” show that they are words of four letters each; and, 
as a fact, they are fire and iife. Life is fleeting, and fire 
is fierce—pennyaliners call it the devouring element—and 
we have all heard of Fire and Life Assurance Companies. 
Did anyone ever make out the “lights?” Mr. Reeves gives 
é Foll-de-roll”’ as the word which begins with F and ends with L, 
and which is supposed to be faithfully described by the line— 
“é Toud and joyous is the chorus ;” “ I Puritani,” as conveyed by 
“ Opera goers all adore us;”’ reef, as prompting the cry—“ Steady, 
boys, there's death before us; ” and elephantine as “ I describe the 
power of Porus,” for which name some of us would require to 
refer back to Pinnock’s Goldsmith’s Greece. The initials of those 
four words spell fire, and their finals spell /ife; and both of these 
are united in a certain Assurance Company. 

Next time we shall give at once, and in the briefest way, the 
the answer to the puzzle proposed. 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


1. Christmas Day will this year be Sunday, for Sunday is the 
First of May. This link between the first day of Our Lady’s Month and 
the Birthday of Our Lord struck very forcibly a certain client of Mary 
who had not been taught the Hail Mary in her childhood; but in 
reality it is a mere bit of arithmetic, finding that 7 goes evenly into 
the sum of the days between May Day and Christmas. This circum- 
stance has no connection with any of the books before us, but is only 
suggested by our resolution, in honour of the month and day, to 
mention first the “ Month of our Lady ” from the Italian of the Rev. 
Augustine Ferran, by the Rev. John F. Mullany, LL.D. (Benziger: 
New York, Cincinnati, Chicago). It is a good book, much more solid 
than many of the Mots de Marie that have been needlessly translated. 
Father Mullany at the end of each day hids us read some book, a 
whole volume, no portion specified. Many of the books are out of the 
reach of most readers, For instance the ‘‘ Immaculate Conception ” 
by J. W. Bryant, and even “Mary Queen of May” by Brother 
Azarias. 





AIR 


Notes on New Books. 275 


2. The preceding book came just in time for its month. Not so 
é“ Meditations on the Seven Words of Our Lord on the Cross” by 
Father Charles Perraud, brought out very neatly by the same 
Publishers. 1890 at page 7 seems right and 1880 at page 169 wrong. 
The first note in the appendix gives some hope for the Impenitent 
Thief, as Tradition calls him. 


8. “Trinity of Friendships, or Girl Chums,” by Gilbert Guest 
(Donohue and Henneberry, Chicago) introduces to us an author 
and a publishing Firm of whom we have never heard before. We 
are sure to hear of Gilbert Guest again, perhaps not under that name, 
for it is only the injudiciously chosen pen-name of a Sister of Mercy 
working at Omaha in Nebraska, whom we shall punish for disguising 
herself so well by telling all that we know about her. One of her 
American reviewers describes her as the ‘‘ daughter, niece, and grand- 
daughter of lrieh patriots who risked their livesin the troubles of 1798 
and 1848.” Using other hints that the newspapers kindly let drop, we 
find that “ Gilbert Guest” is in reality Sister Mary Angela, once 
Florence Brennan, daughter of Joseph Brennan to whom James Clarence 
Mangan addressed a stately poem in terms of reverence that seem 
extravagant, considering that he must have been still less than 20 
years old, for he was born in Corkin 1828. The young rebel in 1849 
took refuge in the United States, where he died in 1857. He 
had married a sister of John Savage (1828-1888) another Irishman 
of high literary abilities and achievements. One of Joseph Brennan’s 
most beautiful poems, given in all the larger Irish Anthologies, is 
“ Florence my Child ”—and we can now conjecture the after-fate 
of that child of song. 

Before giving our opinion of “A Trinity of Friendships ” let us 
refer to an earlier and slighter work, “ Meg,” which is ‘‘ the story of 
an ignorant little fisher girl.” ‘here is a great deal of merit— fun, 
pathos, vivid description, dramatic force. It deserves to be brought 
out more carefully in a new edition, Not only the printers but the 
writer has faults tocorrect. Her ‘‘ brogue” isnot good, but ‘‘indade” 
she can only do her best. There are some traces here of what we 
have noticed in American stories: the people are often represented as 
laughing obstreperously at sayings which would not seem calculated 
to produce such striking effects. Even if the things are funny, let 
them speak for themselves, please. 

‘ A Trinity of Friendships ” is a different sort of work, more than 
double the size of ‘‘ Meg,” and thescenes are on American soil. The 
three friends are three girls ina Convent school; and their adventures, 
the formation and development of their characters there and in their 
respective homes, are told so well as to form a very interesting and 


976 The Iruh Monthly. 


very useful story. A great variety of persons come on the stage, and 
are made to act and talk in a very life-like manner, The publishers 
have printed many testimonies in favour of this excellent tale, given by 
journalists, educators, and priests who understand better than one at 
a distance can understand the circumstances of those for whom it is 
written. But we can safely exhort our librarians at home, in convents, 
and elsewhere, to add Gilbert Guest to their list of interesting and 
more than safe Catholic story-tellers. 

4. We gave a brief notice last month of a dainty book of “Lyrics ” 
by the Rev. John B. Tabb. Nothing in that volume pleased us so 
much as this sonnet of his, which a friend has sent to us to join with 
the pieces that we quoted about sleep at page 455 of last year’s 
volume, and at page 231 of our present Number. 

I wrestled, as did Jacob, till the dawn, 

With the reluctant Spirit of the Night 

That keeps the keys of Slumber. Worn and white, 
We paused a panting moment while anon 

The darkness paled around us. Thereupon— 

His mighty limbs relaxing in affright— 


The Angel pleaded : ‘‘ Lo, the morning light! 
O Israel, release me, and begone ! '? 


Then said I, ‘‘ Nay, a captive to my will 

I hold thee till the blessing thou dost keep 

Be mine.’’ Whereat he breathed upon my brow ; 
And, as the dew upon the twilight hill, 

So on my spirit, over-wearied now, 

Came tenderly the benediction, Sleep. 


5. ‘*A Practical Guide to Indulgences, adapted from the original 
of the Rev. P. M. Bernad, O.M.I., by the Rev. Daniel Murray,” 
(Benziger Brothers: New York, Cincinnati, Chicago) has, at least in 
the original French, the written approbation of the Sacred Congrega- 
tion of Indulgences. After the usual explanatory chapters it describes 
succinctly in order the indulgences attached to certain Sodalities, to 
certain pious practices, then the indulgences that may be gained every 
day, every week, every month, every year, in the last case treating of 
the twelve months one after the other. 

6. ‘‘Archbishop Manning on Purgatory” (London: Burns and 
Oates) is merely a very short note taken by a lady of a very simple 
sermon preached by Oardinal Manning in 1870. It was shown to the 
preacher ten years later, and is now printed with good intentions 
which will have their reward. 

7. Genesis and Science. Inspiration of the Mosate Ideas of Creative 
Work. By John Smyth. (London: Burns and Oates). 

We hardly think that the second title of this work can be defended 
as a proper and accurate expression; and the same misgiving haunts 
us as we advance in our examination of Mr. Smyth’s manner of 


Notes on New Books. 277 


treating a most difficult and perilous subject which he has approached 
in a most orthodox: spirit, but, we fear, with a very inadequate 
acquaintance with the theological and philosophical questions that are 
involved. Surely a work of this kind ought to be guaranteed by an 
official Imprimatur, The book is handsomely produced with several 
well executed illustrations, two of which undertake to represent to us 
the earth on the first of the six days of Creation, and the sun and 
moon on the fourth day. 

8. The Priest in the Family. By Miss Bridges (London; R. 
Washbourne). 

We are sorry that we can only admire the publisher’s part in 

this story. The binding is pretty, and the printing is good. 
_ 9. Messrs. Benziger Brothers of New York, Cincinnati, and 
Chicago have brought out in their usual excellent style ‘ Spiritual 
Exercises for a Ten Days’ Retreat, for the use of Religious Congre- 
gations,” by the Very Rev. Rudolph V. Smetana, 0,S8.R., and a 
much larger book, ‘‘ Sermons for the Children of Mary,” by Ferdinand 
Oallerio, Canon of the Cathedral of Novara. The latter book is 
recommended by Father Richard Clarke, S.J., in a few kind words. 
The first of these little discourses professes to give a short history of 
the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin, in which however there is not the 
slightest allusion to any connection with the Society of Jesus, Did 
not the Sodality spring up and flourish under its auspices? Does not 
each new Sodality require a diploma of aggregation from the Father 
General of the Jesuits ? . 

10. Messrs. Burns and Oates have issued a fifth edition, admirably 
printed and bound, of the ‘‘ Life of St. Patrick” by the Rev. William 
Bullen Morris of the London Oratory. ‘That so large a work, of three 
hundred octavo pages, should have gone through so many editions is 
a remarkable triumph considering the present state of our book- 
buying world. This biography is not the only literary result of the 
self-sacrificing enthusiasm with which Father Morris has for very 
many years devoted himself to the study of everything that concerns 
our national apostle, and which has extorted the admiration of many 
sufficiently hostile critics. 

11. The most important of the recent publications of the Catholic 
Truth Society (69 Southwark Bridge Road, London, 8.E.) is ‘‘ The 
New Utopia’? by Augusta Theodosia Drane, who in religion was 
Mother Francis Raphael of the Dominican Oonvent at Stone in 
Staffordshire. We well remember our delight in reading in 
manuscript the first chapters of this admirable. tale which came to us 
from one whom we did not recognise as the brilliant author of 
Christian Schools and Scholars. 





278 The Irish Monthly. 


‘¢ Then felt I like some watoher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken,”” 


We consider it one of the most perfect works of Mother Raphael 
Drane; and her we consider to have been one of the most gifted 
women of our century, When we add that a very interesting and 
edifying story of such high literary merit is sent forth anew in 4 well- 
printed and neatly-bound volume of two hundred pages at the price 
of one shilling and six pence, we hope we have made sure that “The 
New Utopia ” will forthwith be added to very many household and 
convent libraries. 

12. We can only mention some other publications of the same 
Society. 

For one penny each No. 27 of the Oatholio’s Library of Tales, Ne. 
6 of the Bishop of Clifton’s Catholics and Nonconformists, and Parts 
I., I1., ILI. of Mr. James Britten’s entertaining “' Protestant Fiction ” 
relating respectively to Nuns, Jesuits, and Priests. Another penny 
tract is ‘‘The Age of the Sun: An Astronomical Argument against 
Darwinism,” by the Rev. Aloysius J. Cortie, S.J., F.R.A.S. This 
seems to us much too learned and profound for the readers into whose 
hands it is likely to fallin this form. Cheaper still is an admirable 
paper, “ Plain Fact a Clear Interpreter of Scripture.”’ 

18. The Art and Book Company, London and Leamington, sent 
us a handy volume containing the ‘‘ Order of Divine Service for Palm 
Sunday,” in Latin and English, but too late to be of any use this 
year. They have published also for one penny an earnest and 
excellent essay by the London Oratorian, Father Kenelm Digby Best, 
on the reasons ‘‘ Why no Good Catholic can be a Socialist.” Father 
Best supports his views by the authoritative teaching of our present 
Sovereign Pontiff and his predecessor. 

14. Messrs. M. H. Gill and Son, Dublin, have published in a 
particularly neat volume, ‘‘ Three Lectures on Gaelic Topics” by P. H. 
Pearse, President of the New Ireland Literary Society. The subjects 
are Gaelic prose literature, the Folk-songs of Ireland, and the 
Intellectual Future of the Gael. These papers were read before the 
Society of which Mr. Pearse is President, and he injudiciously retains 
the occasional ‘‘Mr, Chairman ” of the spoken address. He has 
worked up his subjects with the industry of enthusiasm, and he has a 
clear, correct, and unaffected style. 

15. Though it is not called a new edition and is dated 1898, we 
think we have seen before “The Five Marys,” a play for girls by 
Mary T. Robertson. The Five Marys are Mary Stuart and 
her maids of honour, Mary Seton, Mary Beton, Mary Livingstone 
and Mary Fleming. Many effective plays are uninteresting when read 





IR 


Notes on New Books. 279 


privately. We fear this is the best that can be said for ‘‘The Five 
Marys.” 

16. Life of the Very Rev. Father Dominic of the Mother of God 
(Barbert), Passtonist, Founder of the Congregation of Passionists in 
Belgium and England, By the Rev. Pius Devine, Passionist. (London: 
R. Washbourne). 

Father Devine has earned well of his Order by giving us in full 
detail tho edifying lives of Father Ignatius Spencer and now of Father 
Dominic. Father Dominic from a very early period of his life felt 
drawn to missionary work, and especially with a view to the conversion 
of England. In spite of extraordinary difficulties his holy ambition 
was achieved. The great glory of his life lay in the choice that God 
made of him to receive into the Church the most illustrious convert of 
our age, John Henry Newman. The vicissitudes of his religious life 
before and after this grace are fnll of interest and edification and are 
set before us very effectively in Father Devine’s biography which 
forms a handsome volume of three hundred pages, brought out with 
Mr. Washbourne’s usual care and skill. 


17. The four books that at present remain on our table are all 
published by Benziger Brothers. The smallest of them is ‘‘ The 
People’s Mission Book ” by a Missionary Priest. ‘‘ How to Comfort 
the Sick,’’ from the German of the Redemptorist Father Krebs, is 
intended for the instruction and consolation of religious persons 
devoted to the service of God in His sick and suffering members. It 
is a very full and solid manual of three hundred pages. The third is 
a large octavo life of Sister Anne Katherine Emmerich of the Order of 
Saint Augustine. It was written in German by Father Wegener, 
0.8.A., who is the postulator of the cause of her beatification. An 
American member of the same Order, Father McGowan, has translated 
it from the French edition. His work is the best and fullest account 
that has appeared of this wonderful servant of God. The fourth of 
Messrs. Benzigers’ publications must wait till next month. 

18. We have often expressed our admiration for the exquisite 
illustrations which are strewn so lavishly over the pages of the 
American Messenger of the Sacred Heart. It rivals the American secular 
magazines which in this respect leave the best English magazines far 
behind. There is another magazine appealing to our Catholic public 
that seems to us to have recently attained a higher degree of attract- 
iveness and usefulness; namely, Zhe Lamp, (7 Pleydell Street, off 
Bouverie Street, London) the oldest of all the Catholic magazines. 
lt appears in penny weekly numbers and then in sixpenny monthly 
parts. Each week it presents its readers with a picture of some 
ecclesiastic, generally accompanied by a sketch of his career and of his 


280 The Irish Monthly. 


actual work and its surroundings. In the latest volume most of those 
have been of English priests; but the number for April 23rd has 
an excellent likeness of the late Father John Norton, 8.J.; and we 
are promised a portrait and short account of Father Gaffney, 8.J. 
If we mistake not, it was an Irishman who established Zhe Lamp 
more than half a century ago; and it is likely to make a fresh start 
in Irish popularity. 

19. The Rev. J. Magnier, C.88.R., has issued a new edition of his 
“ Ghort Life of the Venerable Servant of God, John Nepomucene 
Neumann, ©.88.R., Bishop of Philadelphia.” It is very well printed 
and brought out in a very readable form, though the price and form 
aim at avery wide circulation. Herder of St. Louis in Missouri is 
the publisher, and the Irish agents are James Duffy and Oo., of 
Dublin, The holy Bishop is likely to be the first canonized Saint of 
North America, as St. Rose of Lima is of South America. His career 
is most edifying and most interesting ; and his Irish brother has given 
an admirable account of it. 


20. Giuseppe Riconosciuto. Translated from the Italian of Pietro 
Motastasio. By M. P. Crinion, B.A., (Dublin; Ponsonby, Grafton 

treet. ) 

Our space is running out rapidly, so we must secure a line or two 
for this excellent literal translation of one of the texts for the Inter- 
mediate Education examinations, to which Mr. Michael Crinion has 
prefixed a brief biographical introduction. 


21. Devenish, Lough Erne; tts History, Antigusties, and Tradsttions. 
(Dublin: M. H Gill and Son). 

This is a really admirable work, and the only fault we can find 
with it is that it suppresses the author’s name. The Belfast printers 
have produced it in the most satisfactory manner, and the illustrations 
which adorn nearly every page are printed off most successfully. The 
anonymous author has collected all possible materials with untiring 
industry, and has arranged them very clearly and agreeably. For the 
natives of Fermanagh this book has special attractions; but it will be 
read with keen interest by many who have never strolled along ‘the 
winding banks of Erne,” and we therefore mention that, though it 
contains some hundred and fifty large octavo pages and a hundred 
very beautiful illustrations, the nett price is a single shilling. 


22. Virgo Prasdtcanda. Verses in Our Lady's Praise. By the Rev. | 
John Fitzpatrick, O.M.I. (Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son), 

The April showers of 1898 will bring forth no more beautiful 
May-flower than this. It is an exquisite booklet in every respect. 
Each of the little poems is merum nectar, distilled most skilfully from 
a heart brimful of piety and poetry. In strange contrast with the 
foregoing, our last announcement this month is the publication, long 
expected in a certain narrow circle, of ‘‘Sonnets on the Sonnet: an 
Anthology.” As the compiler is the editor of this Magazine, all that 
we shall add at present is that the publishers, Messrs. Longman, 
Green, and Co., 39 Paternoster Row, London, have done their part 
well. 


JUNE, 1898. 





GLIMPSES IN THE WEST. 
I. 


PHESE papers ought to be “ illustrated ”—but they are not : 
for that the readers of “THe Irish MosTHLY” are 
responsible. Other Magazines, at its modest price, revel in ‘ black 
and white,” the text being crowded by the pictorial matter into 
odd corners, where he who searches for it may find it. But the 
ascetic tastes of the readers of this Magazine “ will have nothing 
to do with these things,” and the Editor must bow down to their 
decree. Nevertheless I hope that I may have something to say 
on the scenery and associations of this favoured angle of England 
which will bear reading though unhelped by illustration, and at 
the present time perhaps may help some one in doubt as to where 
to spend his month’s holiday on bicycle or on foot, to “try 
Devon and Cornwall.” To any of my countrymen who read this 
such is my advice, as to any such in England I would say, “ try 
the Lakes and Fiords of Kerry and the coast of Clare.” Speaking 
as an Irishman and from experience, I know that they who live 
fifty or eighty miles from Killarney are those who least often 
visit it: and itie only natural that such should bethe case. In our 
holiday times we are wishful for a change other than that of 
environment only. ‘The strange speech, customs, and atmosphere 
of a foreign land at once afford stimulation and refreshment to 
the mind wearied of routine; our thoughts grow wider as we mix 
with the people of another land. When the writer of history in 
the coming century looks back into the social life of the closing 
decade of this one, not the least important item he must note will 
Vou. xxvi. No. 300 - 21 


282 The Irish Monthly, 


be the social change worked by the general adoption of the bioyole 
among men and women of all classes as a mode of travel. It 
has enabled them to visit regions of the world otherwise miles 
beyond the reach of their incomes; what the railway did for 
civilisation in the close of the first half of the century, the safety 
and the pneumatic tyre have done in a lesger degree for the closing 
years of the latter half. France, Italy, and even Spain are each 
year invaded by an ever increasing number of cyolists, men and 
women, who have learnt what the bicyole alone can teach, how 
simple and how cheap a fare will satisfy the healthy appetite, and 
how hard a bed becomes a luxury to limbs that are wholesomely 
wearied. But the terrors of an unknown tongue are a deterrent 
to many from venturing upon the continent : and for such England 
and Scotland offer inducements which, judiciously selected, will 
not disappoint them. I would only note that for those who cycle 
é“ only for cycling’s sake” the counties best suited for them are 
those least interesting to the lovers of nature, whilst those haunts 
which here are the loveliest require some sacrifice from the rider in 
the matter of hill pushing, and maybe also in the qualities of the 
road. Jam not saying more than is to be said of Ireland, nor, 
for the matter of that, of any land under the sun. Nature does 
not intend that you shall “scorch ” through her best efforts; if 
the uphill road is slow to climb, here as in the longer road of life, 
it is good, having reached the summit, to rest and look around. 
The wind from off the upland moors is fregh and sweet, the world 
is wide beneath you, and hazy in the summer sunshine is the far 
off glitter of the silver sea. 

And for us Irish this corner of England that reaches towards 
the vanished land of “ the sunset bounds of Lyonesse ” is full of 
deep and moving interest. It was the harvest land of many an 
Irish saint long before Augustine landed on the shores of Kent: 
where their chapels, crosses, and wells mark the places still which 
their feet once made holy ; where even now they are maintained 
in better preservation than similar relics in their own land; and 
where, if not held in full intelligent veneration by the country 
folk, they are yet invested with so much dim awe and superstition 
of ignorance as prove how vast a work must have been wrought 
on the minds of the forefathers of this Keltic people to have 
lasted through all the mutabilities of faith and doctrine which 
the last three centuries have brought them. 





en ee 


Glimpses in the West. 283 


Finally, Devon and Cornwall are cheaply reached from Cork 
and Dublin twice a week by a service of steamers, good in 
aocommodation and sea-going qualities; and the country abounds 
in hotels and inns with moderate tariffs and good comfort—a 
blessing until quite recently denied our own country. Even in 
the height of the season, August and September, there are few 
places where a little patient enquiry will not furnish one with a 
cheap but cleanly inn where comfort, if not luxury, will be 
assured, For the cyolist I would add only two pieces of advice : 
be thoroughly adept in the understanding of your machine in its 
various parts and especially in the matter of tyre-repairing ; let 
your break be trustworthy and effective ; and, unless you know 
every inch of the ground, or can see a-head a quarter of a mile, 
never once coast down a hill. Devonshire down-hill roads 
especially have a nasty trick of turning sharp at right angles at 
the bottom, and the notice boards of “ dangerous to cyclists ” are 
few and far between as yet in this country. 

I do not believe that this country of which I write does in any 
way equal in natural loveliness the lake districts of Kerry, nor the 
wilds of Connemara. Neither can the sea “all down the thunder- 
ing shores of Bude and Boss,” even in the wildest October gale, 
for a moment be compared with the everlasting might of the deep 
Atlantic as it surges against the iron coast from Kilkee to Moher. 
But on the other hand I doubt if anything in the world surpasses 
the beauty of colour of the summer seas that sweep the Devon 
and Cornish ovasts; whilst, for beauty of dine and colour both, 
there is nothing to equal the cliff formation of Cornwall and parts 
of Devon. To one who knows only the wan gray or deep blue of 
the Atlantic as it washes our own land, the play of iridescent 
colour for ever shifting into newer beauties that rival the rainbow, 
is a revelation, and a fact not easily accounted for, though we 
know that it must be due to refractions of light from the varying 
and shallow beds of the ocean in the channel. And eo it is that, 
whilst never here can the wildest storm lash the sea to the full 
grandeur of its might, as it does when it climbs a cliff’s face two 
hundred feet high, a solid mound of foam, against a headland of 
Clare, and, breaking upon its summit, streams down the land for 
miles, a plume of driven spray—yet, on a summer’s day, when 
the sea at the coast of Clare is monotonously blue, and the sheer- 
cut cliffs are a monotone of line and of black shadow, here, th 


naa 


284 The Irish Monthly. 


colours of the opal are at play upon the deep, the cliffs are warm 
with red and brown and gold, and the scarped traceries of their 
formation, due to upheaval rather than to the work of the waves, 
throw shadows down their sides, softened by a blue glamour of 
haze which rises from the wet strip of yellow sands that encircle 
their feet. . 

Here too, wherever the “lines of cliff breaking have left a 
chasm,’’ the cleft is a wooded gorge that leans back into the land. 
Down from the moors through this chasm which it has wrought, 
redolent of heather and of thyme and in a twilight coolness of 
woodland shadow, leaps a stream, beneath oak and ash and lime 
and sycamore, not stunted and tortured by the storm, but so tall 
and stately in their great sheltered age, that the moss and ivy of 
centuries have covered their trunks and run riot amid their 
branches, so closely woven that the stray shaft of sunlight which 
finds its way lights up but a point of foam on the waterfall, or a 
mass of fern on the bank, making them to glow like fire in the 
gloom. It is these countless wooded valleys with their moor-fed 
streams which make one of the chief charms in this favoured land. 
They are everywhere, the character of each is the same as its 
fellow, and yet each is new with the infinite and subtle difference 
which marks the works of God. In the torrid heat of mid July, 
when wearied with a walk along the summit of the cliffs, where 
the grass was burnt yellow, “ toiling with languid steps that by 
the slippery ground were baffled,” how often I have come to the 
verge of such a gorge, and with a sigh of thankfulness slid down- 
wards through the trees as to a certain haunt of rest. Fed by 
deep springs upon its way, the stream, great or small, is always 
there, the music of its tiny waterfalls and waterslides is as the 
laughter of a child, its icy coolness is balm to the tired feet and 
heated forehead, and a draught of its water crystal-clear is like that 
vintage which poor Keats sighed for in the feverish languor of his 
decline. The moss about the elm-tree roots is lush and cool, and 
lying back against its trunk it is good to rest and pry between 
the branches for glimpses of the blue upper sky, or to stay so quiet 
that the shy brown squirrel no longer fears to slip down the 
nearest tree trunk, and pursue his studies in the strange habits of 
the “lower animals:” and through the gorge, and beneath the 
trees, comes a faint cool wind that has some bitterness in its 
breath, and is laden with a sound which for all the nearness of 


Glimpses in the West. 285 


the laughing stream has a vague note of menace in it, for is it 
not the eternal note of sadness brought in upon the lips of the 
approaching tide? Surely it is good to know that there are left 
some places where it is sweet to rest upon earth’s green sod... . 
before we rest beneath. 

To get a glimpse of another characteristic of this country, 
supposing this to be one of the larger streams, it is well that we 
follow it downwards to the sea. In the break of the cliffs and on 
the westward side of the gorge which it has worn out of the land, 
rises the fishing village, climbing from its lowest house built 
almost on the shingle of the beach, up the face of the precipitous 
cliff, so that the roof of one house is almost level with the ground 
floor of the one above it. I wonder if there can be anywhere in this 
world anything so quaint and curious as a western fishing village? 
Hemmed in by the sea on its front and the cliffs, crowned by lonely 
moorland behind it, can you imagine any community of, say, a 
couple of hundred souls, or perhaps not even so many, living in more 
complete isolation? You come upon it suddenly and for the first 
time, and you doubt the evidence of your senses. Its structure is 
like the vague inconsequence of a dream. Between its tiny 
houses built of granite and often roofed with slabs of the same, 
wander the footways hewn out of the stone of the cliff, and worn 
smooth by the countless feet that now are silent ;—you clamber up 
one of these footways from the beach, to find that it suddenly 
doubles round the corner of a cottage and leads you down again 
to the shore; and you are startled as its edge dips unawares, and 
leaves you looking into the sea, seventy feet below. Or stand in 
a narrow “ aide street,” seven feet wide, and look through a house 
whose front and back doors stand open ; framed in the gloom, 
you get a picture of iridescent flame and sunlit sea on which a 
brown-sailed fishing boat is standing out in startling relief as it 
drifts towards you on the incoming tide. You have nothing 
by which to judge distances or relations of perspective, and the 
boat, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, appears to be at the very 
threshold of the cottage door, about to sail into the house. A 
village such as this in summer time seems to bea quaint home 
only of drowsy idleness and of quiet rest. [ven the voices of the 
children playing among the updrawn boats upon the shingle sound 
faint and languorous, and the men that smoke and lean upon 
the sea wall of the little pier have few words for each other. The 


286 The Irish Monthly 


women only seem to be upon the alert. If you are at all observant 
and watch any of these women, you will note the peculiar glance 
she turns on the sea, a look of questioning suspicion and of dread. 
You would feel aggrieved, were such a look cast at you by the 
veriest stranger. Yet in this matter and for this woman it only 
expresses the habit of mind of a lifetime. If fate placed you on 
this spot next October on a day when the sky is one wash of 
Indian ink, when the air is thick with spume and spray, and the 
vision is narrowed to a mile seaward, through the dim darkness 
of the tempest you would see, rising out of the vast mystery of 
the distance, a wan mountain of grey water, “green glimmering 
at its summit,” and, staggering on its crest for a moment, some 
dark objects come into view. As they rise, you hear a wild wail, 
sharpened by shriller shrieks, from a group of women huddled 
together at the head of the village street, to be followed by a 
moment of silence as each with straining eyes singles out the boat 
which holds all she loves. The wave rushes for the shore and 
hides the boats from sight; above the howl of the tempest, as it 
sweeps up through the barren branches of the wooded gorge, comes 
the louder voice of that incoming wave, as it bursts upon the pier 
and fills the little cove, roaring up the shingle with the voices of 
the fiends. It recedes, leaving the little harbour half empty, and 
“the shriek of the maddened beach dragged down by the wave ” 
is echoed from the women up above, for another mound of foam 
has grown from out the distance bringing the boats in view, and 
the women count again. If one be missing, you will know it in 
the wail of a woman on her knees; and it will seem to you as 
though all the tragedies of this earth are uttered in that cry. Do 
you wonder at the glance this fisher’s wife from habit bends upon 
the smiling summer sea P 

So from out the seaward-gazing gorge with its cluster of close 
built houses, sleeping to-day in the still warmth of a summer’s 
afternoon, there rises to your apprehension a short epitome of the 
history of England’s greatness in the past, for these are the homes, 
and such the mothers of those sons who made her what she is. 
It was in such isolated haunts as these that the men who fought 
under Hawkins and Drake, and later under Nelson, were reared ; 
and the school of danger and hardihood in which they were taught 
was so stupendous that no after vicissitude or danger could daunt 
them. No broadside of an enemy’s battleship could equal the 


I bd 


Glimpses in the West. 287 


terrors of the oncoming sweep of an Atlantic “ comber”’ hurled on 
a small fishing boat struggling to make its harbour within sight 
of home; and it may one day be tested whether training ships 
and science will accomplish as much. However that may be, the 
charm of this western land, apart from its beauties, is this, that 
every corner of her sea board is full of the history of those 
Homeric times, when the world was wide and large and its seas 
were yet scarce sailed, and the sons of one small island were 
awakening to the knowledge that thereon lay their heritage. 

I shall avoid in these papers in any way the adoption of a 
fixed route, or of a guide-book catalogue of places. If in the 
faintest outline and wash of colour I can suggest the elements of 
western scenery and hint at the atmosphere of romance blended 
with history which pervade the haunts I know and have seen, I 
shall have done that which I hope will prove more interesting to 
the general reader, and leave the possible tourist better able to 
judge whether the suggestion I give in the beginning of this 
paper is worth considering. 

A word is due concerning the people of Cornwall, since they 
are “first-cousins’ of ours, and their far off progenitors were 
taught their catechism at the knees of Irish Missionaries. The 
Keltic as spoken by the Cornishmen in the days of St. Pieran may 
not have been much different from the language in which the 
saint preached in his own island; and it will startle you to-day to 
hear the striking likeness in inflection between the English speech 
of a South Devon or Oornish peasant and the same language as 
spoken by the peasant of Munster—but especially by the peasantry 
of Kerry and Cork. My readers will remember that I allude to 
the inflection, noí to the pronunciation. In Cornwall I do not 
think the likeness stops here—character and temperament are 
often strongly and amusingly similar in my experience; and all 
these tendencies fadenorthward and to the east of Devon, as theland 
stretches to the borders of Somerset. The. parallelisms between 
the folk lore, and to descend still lower, between the superstitions 
of the two races, would furnish a study for Dr. Douglas Hyde, or 
Mr. W. Yeats, and might fill volumes. As one who knows to 
the wearing point of his patience the ideas of the two peoples in 
matters of sickness due to “ fairy strokes,” “the evil eye,” and 
“é witchoraft,”’ with the ourresponding antidotes or charms, I have 
often met with old friends under very thin disguises, and some- 


288 The Irish Monthly. 


times even the disguise was wanting. But I would warn the 
visitor that, if it is difficult in Ireland as Mr. Yeats tells us, to 
induce the wise man or wonian to speak to their “ knowledge,” it 
is doubly so here, where English reticence has been grafted upon 
the Keltic candour of speech. As little asany other Englishman 
does the Cornishman wear his heart upon his sleeve for daws to 
peck at. Nevertheless a knowledge of Irish folk-lore, and a few 
judiciously told anecdotes, will often set aside the barriers between 
the traveller and the “ wise woman ;” and once she opens the 
floodgates of her speech, he will be given food for reflection for 
some hours. We may leave folk-lore here to glance at it again 
later on. 

Three Harbours of the West may be said to represent the three 
chief periods of England’s maritime history: Dartmouth, 
Plymouth, and Falmouth, Each, taken in order from East to 
West, had its day of supremacy and of decline, but the destiny of 
Plymouth was in reality always assured, and to-day she is the 
centre of England’s greatness on the seas, as she was three 
centuries ago, when Drake stood upon the Hoe, surrounded by his 
brother heroes and watched and waited for the Spanish Armada 
to heave in sight. The time of Dartmouth’s greatness goes 
farther back, and since it originated because of the greatness of a 
certain town far up the tidal estuary, it goes back very far indeed. 
For a certain prince of Troytown on leaving his city, wasted by the 
wrath of Achilles, was blown on his wanderings somewhat farther 
than was the pious A‘neas, and having weathered the Bay of 
Biscay, made the land-locked harbour of Dartmouth. The tide 
was setting fair up the river, and his companions being exhorted 
by large words and the vision of fertile hills beyond the wooded 
and precipitous shores, they ran the oars out, and “ sitting well in 
order, smote the sounding furrows,” and drove the galley into the 
loveliest spot in England. ‘“J’y suis et j’y reste” has been 
attributed as an original saying to Maréchal St. Arnaud, but that 
is all a mistake, for, having clambered up the hill and looked about 
him, Brutus the Trojan sat him upon a stone, and exclaimed in 
verse that had more reason in it than rhyme— 


‘* Here I am, and here I rest, 
And this town shall be called Totnes.’’ 


If you doubt this—and I have no less authority for it than 


Glimpses in the West. 289 


Geoffrey of Monmouth—look at the very stone on which the 
Trojan founder deposited himself, preserved to this day by his 
descendants, the present Corporation of Totnes—where it lies 
opposite No. 51 Fore Street, and let doubt for ever depart from 
your mind. One thing is at least certain when you enter Totnes, 
that you are in the oldest and best preserved town in England. 
Of course the modern town has escaped from the environment of 
the old battlemented walls, and has run downward to the water’s 
edge; but once you have passed beneath the old town’s gateway, 
Kastgate, you are in streets that look very much the same as they 
did three or four centuries back, save that they are now sleepy and 
deserted, where once the busy tread of merchant-princes echoed 
as they passed to and from the battlements from whence they 
watched for the argosies which bore their rich ventures from 
strange lands through unknown seas. That was a fine taste for 
architecture possessed by the men of those days, who knew how to 
break the front of a house wall in two directions, and hung each 
story beyond the one below, allowing them the luxury of 
quaint carving and elaborate design on the lintels and beams that 
supported them. But I have not the pencil of Herbert Railton 
nor of J. Robins Pennell, and having said thus much, must come 
toa pause. Altogether the view from the Norman keep above the 
town gives you the heart and soul of Devon scenery at its loveliest. 
In the summer haze the hills of Dartmoor lie blue against the 
sky-line, a faint wash of colour in which nothing is definite 
but the sharpness of their outlines where they meet the sky. The 
land between is the richest in Devon, and the roll of the hills with 
their wooded valleys give an abiding sense of rest which no flat 
country canever convey. The young green corn springs from a rich 
red earth, a fact which confers on the pastoral scenery of Devon 
a warmth of tone just where it is most wanted, and breaks the 
monotony of the green uplands, To the south is the long reach 
of the river between its wooded hills. But to see this element of 
the scenery at its best wait the turning of the tide and drift down 
it in a boat. Do any of my readers know the superb watercolour 
by Turner of this scene, taken just a short mile below the town— 
the ‘* Zotnes on the Dart,” in the series of “ The Rivers of England,” 
now in the National Gallery ? The engraving can give you no 
hint of the wealth of colour of the original, but it will show you 
at least the grandeur of line into which all Devon scenery falls. 


290 The Irish Monthly. 


It was on just such another day as Turner pictured it I saw it 
first. There was the same massing of luminous grey clouds of 
sultry summer, with the same soft lights and shadows on distant 
moor and hillside. The old town, with its church tower and keep 
upon the hills and its poplar trees on the brink of the river, slept, 
mirrored in the stillness of the clear smooth water, filled with 
innumerable variegated reflections; and the steep wooded hill 
in shadow on the left hand threw its darkness deep into the 
picture; one only wanted the boat with sail and the group of 
gulls on the near water to skip half a century, and make Turner 
live again. He was at his best in Devon; he never painted 
anything so entirely English as this and the “ Jey Bridge ;” and 
the period in which he painted them was the true centre of his 
artistio life. 

That is a beautiful voyage down the Dart on a summer’s day, 
with the breeze cool and bitter off the tidal stream, and the steep 
wooded hills dark in shadow on the right hand, yet with all the 
details of their dusky boskage felt, and their summits crowned 
with colour in a blaze of bronze and gold just where the sunshine 
topples over their edges and lights the tree tops or the glory 
of the gorse; and suddenly the river widens, the water becomes 
green, and “we are in Dartmouth. There is no harbour in England 
so naturally defended as is thisone. “It is not walled. The 
mountains are its walls ;” so wrote an Italian spy in 1599, when 
a fresh Spanish invasion was planned. Its entrance is but a narrow 
gorge between the precipices of the hills, with a castle on its rock 
_to guard it, where in old days a chain was drawn by night from 
shcre to shore, for the channel is straight and deep and needs no 
pilotage. When a modern romancist places a pirate on the high 
seas, he must find him a land-locked harbour in which to careen 
and refit; and then he thinks of Dartmouth, describes it and 
places it somewhere off Labrador or the Agullhas. That the men 
of Dartmouth in old days should be blind to the natural 
advantages of the place in which Providence had placed them 
would be expecting too much; and, to dothem justice, they made 
full use of it, developing quite early in English maritime history 
intoa race of lusty pirates, which gives “the Schipman of 
Dertemouthe”’ a lasting place in literature at the hands of Dan 
Chaucer among his Canterbury Pilgrims. For whatever sins he 
rode thither to be assailed of, be sure that robbery was the least 


Ghmpses in the West. 291 


grievous, since what the good man fought for and took to-day, 
ten chances to one he perforce yielded up to-morrow; for over 
across the narrow sea was Brittany, with its own complement of 
land-locked bays and resulting hordes of sea robbers; and these 
men were so fierce and numerous that a policy of retaliation was 
the only one which could maintain the existence of Devon ' 
merchandise. Those were fierce and desperate ages, when the 
“Barons of the Crag” inland were no better than highway 
robbers who demanded toll of all the wealthy wayfarers on the 
roads beneath them; we must not apply too strict a code of 
morals to these seamen of the middle ages whose ways lay on 
trackless waters where the idea of law did not exist, and where 
might was the only right. 

At any rate the condition bred a race of hardy seamen, and for 
the matter of that, a race of amazon women; for when the Breton 
Knight Dominus de Castellis, turning his thoughts toward Dart- 
mouth, found it to be a pestilent place, and determined on a 
expedition across seas “to exterminate the vipers,” and indulge 
incidentally upon a general and lighthearted divertissement of 
rapine, murder, and burning all along the western seaboard, 
thanks to the alertness of the men of Dartmouth “it fell out 
otherwise than he had hoped,” as Walsingham quaintly expresses 
it. For, when his expedition came to land and take Dartmouth in 
the rear, six hundred men entrenched upon the shore and backed 
by women having slings, gave the noble Breton knight and his 
retinue so sound a drubbing, that the ditch of their entrenchment 
was filled with men at arms, most of whom the Dartmouth men > 
finished off without meroy, misunderstanding their cries for 
quarter, says Walsingham. But after the heat of the battle had 
cooled, and the remnant of the conquered had scrambled back into 
their ships, there remained some goodly hostages and ransom 
money, and the men of Dartmouth were rich for the time and made 
merry; until, in the following year, the men of Hrittany paid a 
second visit, and, taking them unawares, burned Dartmouth to 
the ground. So, year in, year out, fortune swayed to this side 
or to that; but through all vicissitudes the men of Dartmouth 
were never idle, whether pillaging Brittany or rebuilding their 
own homesteads; and the fighting, as was the wont in those days, 
was savage and fierce. 

However, up to 1385 these duelloes were looked upon by the 


292 The Irish Monthly. 


State as private “ affairs of honour,” until, when Edward LI. 
declared war on France, the Dartmouth men with the help of the 
men of Portsmouth made a dash on their own responsibility across 
channel and up the Seine, where the French fleet lay, sank four 
of them, carried off four more, and with them the barge of one 
De Clisson, ‘“‘ which had not its like in the realms of France or 
England,” which contained in splendour of booty “ enough ”’ says 
Walsingham, “ to satisfy the greediest.” And that in truth is 
saying a good deal. Forthwith then asa reward and acknow- 
ledgement of their prowess, the State identified herself with the 
ancient grudge which the men of the west bore to those of Brittany, 
and King Edward III. having appealed vainly to the Duke of 
Brettagne to keep his subjects in better order 


“ Did devise 
Of English townes threo, that is to say 
Dartmouth, Plymouth, the third it is Fowey, 
And gave them help, and notable puissance 
Upon pety Bretayne for to warre.”’ 


I like that little word “pety ” there; it is so delightfully 
“ English,” the King’s liege majesty making over another man’s 
country to his pet sailors as “a good sporting property.” ‘These 
good seaports could scarce have benefitted further from this 
gracious permission however, seeing how it allowed them no more 
than what they had been doing with sportsmanlike enthusiasm from 
their earliest days. 

And so the tale of fighting runs on into the time of the 
“ Reformation,” when, upon the frank give and take earnestness 
in combat with his enemies which in the middle age helped the sea- 
man to see in them men no worse nor no better than himself were 
grafted a smug fatalism, and pietistic conceit, which made these 
rough pirates of the West behold in their enemies the enemies of 
the Lord, and made their ends Hisends. There is an episode in the 
story of one Robert Lyle, a seaman of the time, so grim, and yet 
naive an illustration of this, that I must quote it. He is telling 
how he behaved in what Yankees would call “a tight place.” 

. “Then said I, ‘ Lord, what shall I do now?’ 
Then the Lord was pleased to put me in mind of my knife 
in my pocket.” . . . . , No need to quote further; 
commentary halts before such ready reckonings with heaven. 


Glimpses in the West. 298 


Yet, favoured as Dartmouth was by Norman kings, and 
included by them in the estates of the Duchy of Cornwall, to 
which it still belongs, it is not of them one thinks the most as one 
wanders round its wharves, now somewhat forlorn and silent, but 
rather of those men of later days, whose lofty dreams and eager 
enthusiasms strike downward through time, and light the present 
with their splendour. It was Dartmouth which in the reign of 
Elizabeth gave us the first dreamers of the “ North-west passage ” 
to India, the quest which later laid the bones of so many of. 
England’s bravest seamen in frozen graves on the ice-wastes by 
the Arctic Sea. And his liege lady the Queen, perceiving therein 
some glory, and much profit, did graciously, and with much 
verbiage, give leave to “our trustie and well beloved servant, 
Adrian Gilbert, of Sandridge, in the County of Devon,” to venture 
out into the unknown, and seek “ the passage unto China and the 
Isles of the Moluccas by the North-westward, that they may be 
known and discovered, known and frequented by the subjects of this 
our realm . . . Nowwe . . . .” which further amounts 
to saying he was free to do so, and that no one was to prevent 
his thus risking his life for fear of her august displeasure. Having 
been thus cheered greatly, Adrian Gilbert and “ certain other 
honourable personages and worthy gentlemen of the court and 
country,” sought one John Vavis, also of Sandridge on the Dart. 
This good sailor wae nothing loth to go, and fortunately for the 
expedition, for on his knowledge and skill in seamanship hung 
the lives of the expedition. ‘wo ships, as they were styled in 
those days (in these we would call them pilot-boats), were fitted 
out in Dartmouth, and named the * Sunshine” and the “ Moon- 
shine,” respectively, and one June morning saw them drift out 
between the castles guarding the harbour, and make sail for that 
unknown sea of drifting ice pack and berg of which no chart 
existed, and only the vaguest rumours came from previous 
voyagers. Strange race of men were these of England’s maritime 
youth, for they not only faced dangers to which their later 
descendants with infinitely greater chances of success succumbed, 
but they conquered them, in part, at least, and returned to DVart- 
mouth, to brave them again and yet again. Into the terrors of 
the ice pack and the drifting bergs old John Davis drove his cockle- 
shell ships, and of these and their doings among the Esquimaux, 
and of all their hairbreadth escapes, you will find in the pages of 


294 The Irish Monthly. 


Hakluyt. Is there no poet to come who will seize upon this mine 
of wealth and give us from its pages an epic of England’s 
maritime greatnessP—no decorative dreamings here amid 
Arthurian legend, where the light at best is wan and doubtful, 
and the material too often reels back into the mist of the elusive 
as we strive to grasp it—but an epic of the sea and shore, as 
definite and full of certainty asis the surge and thunder of the 
Odyssey, where the struggle between cosmic forces and man’s 
immortal energies shall be fought out day by day, where the 
olimax ends in no 
' 66 Darkness of that battle in the west 
Where all of high and holy dies away,” 
but where the feet of Englismen shall be set once more on English 
shores, and the light of victory and of achieved endeavour shall 
kindle in the faces that we know. 
Montacu GRIFFIN. 


THE VISION OF GRAINNE.* 


GRÁINNE and Diarmuid, fleeing Finn's wild wrath, 

Sped from the Birch Glen at the ring of dawn 
Past Carrach southward hasting o’er the hills, 
Past Laune and by Loch Lein a summer day, 
Till in the moist cool wood they gathered breath 
Darkling shove Toun Tvime. The sun was low, 
And westward shadows folded round the hills, 
And thick’ning closed the blue eye of the lake 
Like lids of slumber. Diarmuid spoke: ‘‘ Yon peak 
Will grant sweet heather for thy rest to-night.” 

“ Nay, I am tired,” said Grainne, “rest, we here.” 
So Diarmuid gathered fragrant apple boughs, 
And rowan-tops, and silver-bannered reeds, 

And laid them on a low bank violet-dazed, 
A couch for Grainne: then he slept apart. 
And Grainne had a vision in the night 


* This Celtio name is sometimes written phonetically ‘‘ Grannia.”’ In the 
south—whenoce the story of Diarmuid comes—it is heard as Graunyé. 


The Vision of Grainne. 


Of Diarmuid lying bloody on a mound, 

Finn laughing nigh ; and thrice he looked to Finn, 

And thrice Finn mocked him: Diarmuid closed his eyes ; 
And Grainne woke chill-damp with dread, and chill 
With damp and dread sate listening on her couch : 

A weird wild cry was winging on the wind, 

And ringing round the peak, and o’er the lake 

This song came changing with the banshee’s keen : 


‘ Weep, Grainne, weep thy black-haired! o’er the waste 
The fierce tore speeds—the Fianna fleeing far, 
And Diarmuid straining up the mountain side. 


“ Weep, Grainne, weep the bright-teeth! Diarmuid’s blood 
O’er-eager sates the tulach where he lies: 
Red-tusked the torc bleeds nigh him on the hill. 


‘‘ Weep, Grainne, weep thy lost one! cruel Finn 
Has power, and Diarmuid craves the life-draught thrice, 
And Finn thrice laughing mocks, and Diarmuid dies.”’ 


Then with a low wild wailing ceased the song, 
And Diarmuid woke: it was the stroke of day ; 
Breaking the east the dream-eyed morning came, 
And ringed the hills with gold; the dim wet leaves 
Smiled to his greeting, and the feathered bards 
Woke chirping on the branches. Diarmuid spoke : 
‘¢ The dawn speeds gently; rouse thee now, my heart, 
And while I seek our morn-meal in the pool, 
Dare to sweet rivalry the waking birds; 
But, Grainne, thou art pale.” She told the dream, 
And Diarmuid laughed. ‘A woman's dream,” he said, 
And laughed, and all the echoes laughed. But she: 
‘¢ I heard the banshee then above the wood, 
And singing round the hill, and o’er the lake ; 
She told Finn’s cruel mocking, and thy plight,”’ 
é“ Nay, let Finn come,” said Diarmuid. ‘I am fit.” 
“ She sang the death-wail high above the wood, 
Aud rang it round the peak, and o’er the lake, 
And sang the fierce tore red-tusked with thy blood, 
And told Finn’s cruel mocking, and thy death.” 
é“ Well, death will come,” said Diarmuid. ‘‘I am fit.” 


296 The Irish Monthly. 


Five days they tarried by the lake, then passed 

North with the dawn to Finnlia, eastward thence, 

Finn following, o’er Sleiv Luachra past Tair Karann, 

Through green Hy-Conail Gaura north the Feale, 

Then right the Siona to Two- Willow Wood ; 

And Grainne ever brooded on her dream, 

But Diarmuid lightly met the men of Finn, 

And made red-rushing slaughter with his spear 

Ga Dearg, and sword Moralitach, till Finn thought : 
‘¢?T were vain to follow Diarmuid,” and made peace. 


Then in Ceis Corann Diarmuid dwelt, and there 
Grainne content in peace forgot her dream, 
Till Diarmuid one night heard a hound in sleep, 
And woke, and wished to follow up the cry, 
But Grainne held him, and he did not go; 
And thrice he heard the call, and starting thrice, 
Thrice Grainne soothed him, and he did not go. 
But in the morning Diarmuid sought the cry, 
And reached Ben Gulbain : Finn was there alone. 
Diarmuid with short ill greeting questioned him: 
“ Who makes the chase unlicensed on these lands ?”’ 
Then Finn: ‘‘A hound unleashed scented the trail 
At midnight, and at morn the Fianna rose, 
And took the field, and followed. Tis the boar 
Of Gulbain vainly followed oft, and now 
As idly; early yet at dawn, blood-pooled, 
Thrice ten our warriors weltered on the plain, 
Slain by the fierce pig. Haply like fate ours 
So we bide here, for now he takes the hill, 
Flame-eyed, the Fianna fleeing.” ‘‘ Let him come. 
Diarmuid nor feared Finn’s sword, nor fears a pig.” 
Break not the geasa, Diarmuid. ’ Ware the chase! 
’Ware the wild boar of Gulbain : he it is, 
Son of the stewart, by Donn Doncha slain, 
Quicked by his father’s magic, a cropped green pig 
Fated to slay thee. Aonghus by the Boyne 
Laid on thee bonds never to follow boar ; 
Thou dost but ill to break them. ’Ware the chase!” 
“ I fear no chance,” said Diarmuid, ‘I will stay.” 


Then Finn passed round the hill, and tarried there, 
Biding; and Diarmuid thought: “ This chase is Finn's, 


The Viston of Grainne. 297 


Made for my death. No man may flee his fate, 
And I will take my lot; so let death come; 

I fear not: I am fit.”” Then up the hill 

The wild boar rushed by Diarmuid round the peak, 
And down the valley-fall to Kas-ao-rua, 

And back, and took the mountain’s front again, 
Hot chased by Diarmuid, till on the bare high Ben 


-They faced, the fierce torc gathered for a spring. 


Then Diarmuid poised Crann Bui, Mananan’s shaft, 
And made a straight sure cast, and smote the pig | 

Fair mid-forehead, and ’voiding the fell leap, 

Struck with Beag-altaoh on the bristled back ; 

The good steel split, and Diarmuid held the hilt; 

Swift leaped the boar again: Ui Duivne tripped, 

And the white tusks were buried in his blood ; 

He gathered strength ; straight-hurled, the flashing hilt 
Dashed through the skull: death stiffened on the tore. 


Then round the hill the Fianna came, and Finn, 
I like thee, Diarmuid, in that plight,” he laughed ; 


“é Pity the maids see not their gallant now 


é 


Spoiled by a pig.” But Diarmuid : “ Natheless, Finn, 

'Twould more beseem thee by that power to heal, 

Given thee at the Boyne. A drink from thy palms 

Cupped, and the strength of thirty years is mine.”’ 

A boon ill-bought,” mocked Finn, “ or any boon 

To thee. Mind’st not the flight from royal Tair 

With Grainne when I would wed her?” ‘ Well I mind. 

She called my geasa : Oisin and Oscar heard. 

I went on bonds. Aye, well [ mind that night, 

And that when round the house of Dearc the brands 

Of Cairbre flamed red-ready for thy death, 

Till I thrice ringed the Bruiean, and circling slew 

Three fifties of the best : the boon were mine 

That uight unasked: now grant it at my need.” 

Then Finn: ‘‘ There is no water on the hill.” 

But Diarmuid: ‘‘ Thou knowest ’tis false. Why trick me, Finn ? 

‘ho well is nigh nine paces.”” And Finn turned, 

And filled his palms, but tarried, and the draught 

Slipped through the loose-locked fingers. Diarmuid groaned, 
traitened by death. ‘‘ Thou wouldst not serve me thus 

That night by Quicken Palace while I watched, 

And dared the spells of Miodhach. With thy life 


Vou. xxvri. No, 300. 22 


298 The Irish Monthly. 


I bought what boon I would ; but now ’tis late ; 

The stroke of death is on me: at thy need 

Thou’lt lack me.” Then Finn turned, and filled his palms, 
And hastened, but tripping fell, and Diarmuid died. 


Then Aonghus bore the body north to Brugh, 

And laid it by the Boyne ; and Grainne cried, 
Shrilling the death-wail round the startled Rath 
Three days: then called her sons, and Ollan Ule, 
And charged thom: “ Your father hath been slain by Finn 
Against the peace: now take his spear Ga Dearg, 
Crann Bui, the yellow shaft, his quick sure sword 
Moralltach, and his armour. Learn their use 

In every court of heroes in feat of strength, 

Valour, and warlike practice till ye come 

Fit for the eric.” So they parted thence. 

And Grainne ever brooded on revenge ; 

But after days Finn came with crafty words, 

And won her; the Fianna laughed; ‘‘ A weak-winged dove 
Iil-mated to a hawk |!” And Oisin mocked ; 

“ We trow, O Finn, thou’lt keep her well henceforth 
That thou mayest keep thyself from Diarmuid’s sons.” 
And after years the youths came, lusty-limbed 

With frames war-wolded, questing strife of Finn, 
Red eric strife, blood for their father’s blood, 

Till Grainne went between, and they made peace, 

And joined with Finn, and took their father’s place; 
And Finn and Grainne bided many years, 

And Finn remained by Grainne till the end. 


CuarurEs J. BRENNAN. 





( 299 ) 


THROUGH THE DARK NIGHT. 
or, 


THIRTY YEARS AGO. 





CuHapter XLII. 
REAPING THE HARVEST. 


HE authorities searched Vincent Talbot’s office for any 

incendiary documents that might possibly be secreted 

there. Mr. Talbot and Mr. Moore, a cousin of the missing man’s 

wife, and a magistrate of undoubted loyalty, facilitated the search, 

and smiled at the absurdity of Vincent, a hardworking attorney, 

mixing himself up with a foolish conspiracy. There was nothing 
found to criminate him. 

Bills came pouring in from milliners and dressmakers, tailore, 
grocers, greengrocers, butchers, and bakers; sinking Ethna, hour 
by hour, into profounder depths of shame and self-upbraiding. 
The Madam was actually stunned by such hard proofs of her 
daughter’s incapacity for managing her household expenses. 

é“ What came over you?” she exclaimed, when a milliner’s bill 
arrived. ‘ You who would not goin debt for a pair of gloves, 
or buy them without knowing their price, what madness came 
over you P” 

It was a bitter time. The Madam sold out shares she had in 
the bank, and raised all the money she possibly could to help to 
pay her daughter’s debts; so did Mr. Talbot. And between 
them they contrived to appease the creditors. Perhaps it was 
good for the old man that he had to brace himself up once more 
to re-establish the business which his unfortunate son had 
destroyed. 

é“ Tt must be done,” he said to himself. ‘ He will come back 
again to take it up.” 

A few of Ethna’s fashionable friends called, and left their 
cards. They did not ask to see her; but though she did not want 
to see them, it added to her humiliation to find herself neglected 


800 The Irish Monthly. 


in her misfortunes by those whom she ruined herself to entertain. 

It is generally some unhappy circumstance which brings back 
a woman to the home of her parents. 

Ethna felt the cup of bitterness overflowing as she sat beside 
her mother in the train that bore them onward towards Mona. 
She, whose return heretofore had been a social triumph, was now 
going back ruined by her own carelessness and extravagance, 
without a house, without means, and without her husband. 

She knelt that night beside the little bed that had been hers 
in her girlhood, and clasped her arms in spirit about the foot of 
the Cross. A great change had come over her, scales seemed 
to have fallen from her eyes, and she beheld herself as in all the 
selfish unloveliness of the past few years. She did not rebel, as 
she rebelled against the annihilation of her early love dream. She 
accepted her cross meekly, acknowledging her unworthiness, only 
praying to God with passionate fervour to send her back her 
beloved husband, so that she might make a life-long atonement. 

In an agony of expectation she watched the post for a letter 
from Vincent; every morning she felt as if her heart would 
break; but at length her pulses leapt at the sight of his hand- 
writing, and, bursting out crying, she pressed the letter over and 
over to her lips. 

It was a tender and touching letter, accusing nothing or 
nobody but himself, his wild folly and want of common sense, 
feeling only for her and his father, and troubled about his debts. 
He would not return till he had made money. He was going up 
the country, and perhaps would return a rich man by-and-by. 

é Will you forgive me?” he said. ‘ Will you be glad to see 
me again? Ah, Ethna! I often thought you did not care much 
about me.” 

The simple sentence went like a knife into her heart, filling it 
with unutterable anguish. She had noteven the comfort of pouring 
out her love and penitence to him. He was leaving the place he 
wrote from immediately, and was to write again as soon as he got 
somehow settled down. 

Father Garrett and Nell O'Malley often paid a visit to Mona. 
Nell was as cheerful and active as of yore, but there was a look of 
pain about the red lips, and the brown eyes were often filled with 
unshed tears. She heard occasionally from her lover, who was 
watching his opportunity to escape to America, and who avowed 





Through the Dark Niyht. 301 


his intention of risking everything to see her before he left. She 
implored of him not to do so; Monalena was well guarded ;. 
patrols walking about day and night. Father Garrett had also 
got into trouble. His Fenian sympathies were suspected and 
brought upon him the displeasure of his bishop. 

Corney O’Brien wandered from house to house, restless aa 
Cain, and afraid to stop anywhere. He tried to get as much 
money as would take him out of the country, but money was 
scarce, and his friends were few. He knew Mr. Talbot and 
Mr. Taylor blamed him for Vincent having drifted into the 
conspiracy, so he could not appeal to them for help; and Ethna 
realised her straitened circumstances when she found herself 
unable to assist him in his object. In Louis Sarsfield was his 
only hope. Nell was to give him word when she expected hint. 
Corney’s spirits had never recovered the shock of Big Bill’s fearful 
end. He spoke often and mournfully of it when he and Lizzie 
Lynch met at the trysting place to console each other for the 
present and plan the future. | 

“T'was little I thought I’d ever have anyone’s blood upon 
my soul or send one unprepared before his God,” he would say. 
é“ Í dream at night of it, and think I see him falling backwards 
into the river. What harm if it was in a fair fight P But sure we 
would be all done for if he lived, an’ they say ’tis no harm to 
kill one in self-defence. I wish Í never put my feet in the city; 
nothing but sin and temptation stalking about in it. We run 
down the hill fora bit of sport, and then we can’t stop ourselves.” 

“God will forgive you, Corney, dear,” Lizzie answered ; 
‘‘ sure you wouldn't rise your hand to a child. It was in the heat 
of the moment you done it, but ’twill be a warning to you all the 
days of your life to keep away from bad companions and be said 
by the priest.” 

é“ An’ that poor creature that got her death trying to save me,” 
said Corney sadly. ‘Glory be to God, what misfortune I had !”’ 

é“ Maybe the hand of God was in it, Corney, asthore. Sure 
the nun told me when I said I was a friend of hers that she had a 
blessed death and was well prepared to die; who knows only she 
was taken to the hospital would she have the priest and the holy 
nuns about her; there isn’t a night that rises but I pray for her, 
and a good right I have.” 

‘‘The Lord have mercy on us all, living an’ dead,” said 


802 The Irish Monthly. 


Corney. ‘“IfI could follow Mr. Vincent, we might be happy 
again. I’d soon be able to send for you, Lilly, an’ our hearts 
would rise in anew country ; we can do nothing for the old 
one.” 





Cuaprer XLIII. 
CAPTURE AND ESCAPE. 


It was a cold blowing night in the end of March, hurrying 
clouds swept across a pale moon, the voice of the ocean was heard 
looming in the distance, the snow lay defiled and sodden on the 
streets of Monalena, as Louis Sarsfield cautiously stepped over the 
churchyard wall, crossed the road and slipped through the half- 
open door of Father Garrett’s cottage. It closed behind him, 
and not too soon, for a patrol turned the corner a few moments 
after he entered. 

All his plans were laid. Oorney O’Brien was to drive Seagull 
quietly along the road outside the village when it was eleven 
o'clock. They would proceed to the sea; a canoe with two fisher- 
men waited there; a vessel cruised off the coast; one short hour 
and they were safe, their liberty secured, and a wild free life 
before them in the free land of the Stars and Stripes. Life and 
liberty were sweet, they were young and strong, and in love with 
women worthy of the love of brave, true men. An hour and all 
would be well, the future lying hopeful, bright, and beautiful 
before them. 

Louis held the hands of his betrothed clasped in his. 

“Tt will not be a long parting, my girl; before three months 
you will be housekeeping for me, and taking stock of my shanty. 
Cheer up, my Nell, and think of the days before us.” 

‘“‘T wish you wero landed safely, Louis,” answered Nell. 

éI may go to marry you,” said Father Garrett, with a sad 
smile. ‘“1tis not unlikely I shall look out for a foreign mission. 
I am under a cloud at present, but it may pass; we don’t always 
get credit for our good intentions in this world.” 

“ You must come out,” replied Louis, “ that will be the climax 
to our happiness. All countries are the same to him who looks 
only to the salvation of souls; who knows but you and Nell would 
come out together; you will not keep my wife from me, Father 
Garrett ?” 


> 





Through the Dark Night. 308 


“Tl trust Nell to you as 1 would trust her brother,” saic 
Father Garrett. ‘I believe you will never betray that trust.” 

“ Never, with God’s holy help,” was the answer. 

They talked earnestly. Nell’s eyes turning now aud then with 
feverish anxiety to the little clock on the mantlepiece, her face 
growing paler as minute after minute was ticked away with 
deathlike precision. 

Eleven o’clock came; Louis stood up. Father Garrett went 
to the hall-door to reconnoitre, and see if the coast was clear 
and clasped in one tender embrace, the lovers bid each other 
farewell, though Nell, womanlike, was in an agony of appre- 
hension. She tried to cheer him and smiled through her falling 
tears. mm 

é Whatever happens us, we love and trust each other, Louis,” 
were her last words. “ And that is a great happiness.” 

é“ Don't come,” said Louis to Father Garrett, when he got 
outside the door. ‘Give me your blessing and let me go alone. 
We shall meet again with the help of the good God.” 

He skirted the village cautiously, and came to the high road 
just as Corney O’Brien drove tranquilly along. He stopped in 
the shadow of a few trees. 

é“ We are safe enough,” said he, when Corney reached him. 
“ Father Garrett might have come to see us off.”’ 

He patted Seagull on the neck and was moving on to step into 
the trap, when three policemen sprang over the wall and seized 
the bridle. Louis leaped into the seat, and used his whip 
vigorously. Seagull plunged violently, bounded mto the air, 
shook off his assailants, and was off like a flash. 

“ Your revolver,’’ said Louis, through his clenched teeth ; “we 
have to fight for our lives. Seagull, old fellow, you never failed me ~ 
yet.” 

At headlong speed they tore along the road, the moon some- 
times appearing amid the drifting clouds, lighting up the white 
world with a cold, ghastly gleam. The cold wind whistled by 
their ears, and soon, borne distinotly on it, they heard, dulled by 
the snow and slush, the sound of galloping horses. 

é They will never catch us,” cried Louis. ‘Seagull, old boy, 
tis a good one that can come up to you.” 

They turned the next corner. The dull roar of the ocean 
seemed to leap with mightier strength upon their ears. Before 





304 The Irish Monthly. 


them it lay about half a mile, a great blackness fringed with 
white, as it broke upon the sounding shore. 

“Ten minutes more an’ we are out of their power,” said 
Corney, in breathless excitement. ‘‘ Steady down the hill, sir, the 
road here is full of ruts.”’ 

There was a jolt, a sudden crash, the trap swayed, Seagull, 
mad with fright, sprang forward again, and fell head foremost to 
the earth. 

Louis and Corney were flung out, and the trap, with one 
wheel smashed, lay overturned on the ground. 

After a bewildered moment the fugitives got upon their feet, 
and with one impulse went to the assistance of the horse. 

“ They are coming,” cried Corney. “' Let us run.” 

é Too late,” answered Sarsfield ; the next moment they were 
surrounded by mounted men, and taken prisoners. 

“é Look to my horse,” said Louis, calmly; “he may hurt 
himself.” 

“ An hour would bring them to safety,” said Father Garrett 
to Nell, as they sat by the fire too disturbed to think of going to 
bed. “I will go over to Mona at the dawn of day to see if 
Seagull is come back all right.” 

“ They ought to be on the sea by this time,” answered Nell; 
“éit is past twelve. I wish we knew. ’Tis terrible to be in 
suspense all night.” 

She was interrupted by the tramp of men before the house. 
There was a loud knock at the door. On being opened the hall 
filled with armed men. 

é“ What do you come for at this hour of the night, disturbing 
quiet people P” asked Father Garrett. 

é A late hour for quiet people to be out of bed, sir,” answered 
the police-officer. ‘It is my unpleasant duty to search the house. 
You will permit me to proceed.” 

“ Certainly,” said Father Garrett; “but may I. ask for 
what ?” 

é“ You are suspected of harbouring a Fenian leader,” was the 
answer. ‘* Proceed, men.” 

With a beating heart, Nell addressed the officer, whom she 
knew slightly. He courteously apologised for his intrusion, but 
he had to do his duty. She replied calmly that there was no one 
in the house but herself, her brother, and an old woman—he could 

‘9 for himself. 








Through the Dark Night. 305 - 


“Tam afraid you would conceal a rebel if you could, Miss 
O'Malley,” said the officer with a smile. 

“ I would betray no one that trusted me,” answered Nell. 

“Tf the bird be flown, he cannot fly far,” the officer said, 
turning to leave the room. ‘Our men are upon every road 
leading from the village.” 

Nell’s composure did not fail her while they were ransacking 
the house inside and outside, examining beds, pantries, and 
presses. Nor did she flinch or faint when the tramp of horses 
caused a new bustle in the street. And a murmur ran among the 
policemen; they crowded about the door. The officer was called 
out; Nell drew back the blind and gazed into the darkness. It 
was bright enough to show her the figure of her lover and Corney 
O’Brien bound hand to hand. 

It was evident the officer was in a very uncertain state of mind 
as to the propriety of arresting Father Garrett, but decided on 
not doing so without further orders. 

Next morning the parish priest sent for Father Garrett, from 
him he learned that his arrest was but delayed, and that his bishop, 
who with'the clergy in general were determined opponents of the 
Fenian movement, was about to suspend him. 

With pale cheeks, but a resolute heart, Nell counselled him to 
avail himself of the means provided for Sarsfield’s escape. 

‘If you are taken prisoner, you are ruined,” she said, “ or 
you will come into trouble with the bishop. Your only chance is 
to leave the country.” 

“ And you, what would become of you.” _ 

‘“‘T am able to take care of myself. I can stay on here for the 
present. My heart will break if you also are taken prisoner. We 
will follow you when they are liberated.” 

é“ When they are liberated ?”’ Father Garrett shook his head 
despondingly. “ Will they ever be liberated ?”” 

“ Oh, my God, they will,” cried Nell, clasping her hands in 
agony, “ but you must not remain in danger.” 

She left the room, and hastily began to pack some of his 
clothes into a portmanteau. She returned soon, telling him the 
car was coming round. 

“ Here is the money you gave me to keep,” she said. “You 
have as much as will bring you to America. I can send you some 
when I get it out of the bank, and know where to direct.” 





30€ The Irish Monthly. 


In an uncertain state of mind he allowed himself to Le led by 
her. She put the pertmanteau into the well of the car, and told 
the old woman that she would remain that night at Mona. They 
drove away, and in a quarter of a hour were standing in the 
Madam’s parlour. Nell-hurriedly made known her troubled 
story, and the Madam’s opinion so entirely coincided with hers as 
to the advisability of Father Garrett’s withdrawing himself that 
he no longer hesitated. 

“I will go with you, Nell,” said Ethna, “and drive you back. 
We will take the boy. When he knows nothing, he will have 
nothing to tell.” 

Leaving the Madam in tears, they got again upon the car, 
and drove rapidly towards the sea. They came to a Jonely part 
of the coast. 

é Thank God,” cried Nell, “the boat is there yet.” 

A little canoe rose and fell upon the waves, with two fisher- 
men in it. 

Father Garrett signalled to them, and they rowed to the shore. 
It was no easy matter to land. The breakers bore them in ani out 
for many minutes. At last it came close enough. One of the men 
leapt out into the broken waves, and drew the canoe up on the sand. 

Father Garrett spoke to them in a low voice. 

“ We will and a thousand welcomes, your reverence,” the 
men whispered in reply. ‘“ We almost gave up expectin’ them. 
“was easily known somethin’ happened.” 

“God bless you, Ethna’’—Father Garrett turned to her and 
put out his hand—“ God bless you, my child, and give you happy 
days again.” 

“ Nell, my girl ”—— 

His voice shook. Nell clung to him for a moment. 

“ We will be all happy yet, Garrett,” she said. ‘ Don’t be 
afraid anything will happen me. I shant be a bit lonely when I 
know you are out of danger. God will take care of me till we 
meet again.” 

“ I place you all under the proteotion of Him who never turns 
from those who seek Him,” answered Father Garrett, taking off 
his hat, “‘ may He gather you into His divine arms and preserve 
you, soul and body.” 

He walked out into the orisp wavelets that rushed in upon 

hroken sand. 





Through the Dark Night. 307 


“ Quick, your reverence, before the next wave comes,” said 
the fisherman, steadying the canoe. 

He got in, the men pushed her off, the foam breaking about 
his waist, and then scrambling in over the prow; they were soon 
dancing about on the billows, but the little boat answered to the 
stroke of the oars. A rift inthe dull sky let out suddenly a flood 
of pale gold light, and on the glittering trail it left upon the 
waters, the little boat floated away, till it seemed like a glancing 
seabird, and far off upon the horizon they saw a sunlit sail, shining 
betweon earth and sky. Nell sat down upon a rock, and wept as 
if her heart would break. 

The next day the warrant for Father Garrett's apprehension 
on the charge of harbouring rebels was out. 





CuarTer XLIV. 


THE SENTENCE. 


The trial of the Fenian prisoners came on. Sorrowful men 
and weeping women thronged the court to hear the doom awarded 
those rash enthusiasts whose lives were as dear to them as their 
own. Nel] O’Malley was there with Lizzie Lynch drooping 
beside her. She sat where she could see and be seen by the 
prisoners. She bore herself bravely ; her face was pale as death, 
but her brown eyes were bright and tearless, and filled with holy 
resolution. 

She had applied at once to Mr. Taylor to take measures for 
the defence of her lover and Corney O’Brien, and with ready 
sympathy he had done all he possibly could in their behalf. Able 
counsel was employed, and every wheel they could possibly 
influence in the machinery of the law was put in motion. 

Man after man appeared, was tried, and received his sentence. 
The sea of faces was beginning to wane and resolve slowly before 
the girl’s strained vision. It was like an awful dream; all the 
eager human eyes around the great court, from wall to ceiling, from 
gallery and bench, staring at one solitary figure, and that figure 
waiting silently for the word that was to set him free again upon 
the blossoming bosom of the fresh stormy world; or shut him 
away from the face of his fellow-men into a life of maddening 
monotony, dark and narrow as the grave. 





308 The Irish Monthly. 


Nell was recalled to vivid consciousness by a change of 
. prisoners in the dock. Erect and self-possessed, her lover stood 
before her. When he recognised her it seemed as if his soul leant 
into his eyes, and they exchanged one long look of unspeakable 
love. 

His trial began. With earnest eloquence his cause was 
pleaded by his counsel, and every circumstance which could lessen 
his offence ably commented on; but nothing availed; the evidence 
was too strong against him, and the verdict was pronounced— 
ten years’ penal servitude. He looked at Nell, she smiled one of 
her bright smiles, one sufficient to inspire him with fortitude if 
any weakness crept upon his spirit. He passed out of the dock 
to give place to Corney O’Brien, on whom the same sentence was 
passed. Lizzie Lynch fell fainting into Nell’s arms. 

By much interest Nell obtained an interview with her betrothed. 
She knelt beside him in his cell and clasped her arms about his 
neck. 

“Tt won't be long passing,” she said, “it won't be long 
passing, we must be strong and patient. God will give us 
strength to bear it.” 

é“ You must put me out of your head, Nell,” he answered, 
“you must not spend your youth thinking of me. Go to Father 
Garrett when he is settled. I won't have you waste your life.” 

é I won't waste my life,” she said. ‘I will make the best of 
it; we must take the bitter with the sweet from Him who permits 
our separation; but I'll never go away, I’ll stay as near you as I 
can. Oh, Louis, when your heart sinks, remember there is a 
woman waiting whose every hope of earthly happiness is bound up 
in you, and it will strengthen you to endure.”’ 

“ Mxy faithful darling,.it addsto my grief to think I have 
made you asharer init. I wish to God we never met.” 

“ Oh, don’t say it,” she cried; “don’t say it!” The pain is 
nothing to the happiness of loving, and being loved by you. Ah, 
Louis, am I not some little comfort to you also? I who would 
gladly suffer in your stead ?”” 

é“ My heart’s treasure, my blessing,” he murmured, laying his 
face upon her bent head. “ The Almighty takes away with one 
hand and gives with the other ; he takes my liberty and gives me 
your love. He stregthens me to suffer patiently. Oh, God, it is 
hard, hard to bear.”’ . 


3 


Through the Dark Night. 309 


“é Yes, it is hard to bear, but it will pass; think how fast the 
past ten years have flown, they seem to have come and gone like ' 
aray of light; the next ten will fly by also, and we will be 
together then, happy at last, never to be parted again.” 

“ My own darling, will you ruin your life waiting for me; 
ten weary years? It is madness to think of it.” 

“I would wait until my dying day,” she said. “ You are my 
first and last love. Ah, Mother of God, pity us.” 

‘They spoke of many things. Nell hid her anguish, and 
continued to utter words of confidence and hope. The turnkey 
came to the door to say the time was up. Clasped in each other’s 
arms, their lips met in one last despairing kiss. The next 
moment the iron door closed between them, the key grated 
in the lock, and they were as separated as if it were the door of 
Louis Sarsfield’s tomb that shut him away from her. She was 
joined by Lizzie Lynch who had had her parting scene with 
Corney O’Brien. All was over. Uncertainty, hope, and suspense. 
There was now but patient endurance; there was nothing more 
to be done, and the two girls returned to Mona. 

The Madam insisted on Nell’s remaining with her for some 
time. She v.ould be only too glad to keep her always if she 
could prevail on her to stay; but Nell explained to her that an 
idle or half-idle life would leave her at the mercy of her sorrowful 
thoughts. Plenty of occupation was the only thing that would 
help her to keep up her heart. She would dispose of the cottage, 
and try and get a situation asa governess. She could not bear to 
go abroad, so far from her lover’s prison. She would stay as near 
it asshe could. With much reluctance the Madam consented to 
the arrangement and wrote to a friend of hers in Dublin about 
procuring the desired situation. The lady responded satisfactorily. 
Her own daughter wanted a governess for two little children of 
seven and nine years'‘old; she would be perfectly satisfied with 
anyone the Madam recommended. Nell disposed of all her 
belongings, and in three months after her parting with her lover, 
was earning her bread cheerfully, calculating with great nicety 
how much money might she have saved, when nine years and 
nine months came to an end; oh, happy thought ! he, her beloved, 
was three months nearer to liberty. 

Ethna no longer lay inert upon a sofa, or hung over the fire, 
trying to forget the actual in the pages of fiction. She had passed 


310 The Irish Monthly. 


under tke yoke and stood ereot again, a better and wiser woman ; 
the natural strength and nobility of her nature, which had flowered, 
so to speak, into rank luxuriance, was pruned by the sharp edge 
of circumstances, and the healthy growth began. Her mother 
was somewhat straitened, trying to pay her debts, some of which she 
was still accountable for. The Madam had to live less generously. 

“é We have no right to spend a halfpenny, while there is a 
halfpenny due, dear,” she would say to Ethna. The dairymaid 
was discharged and the gay belle of many balls supplied her place 
successfully. Her days were given to wholesome, pleasant labour ; 
but her nights to tears. Her heart yearned for her husband and 
there was no account of him. 

Lizzie Lynch’s mind was distracted by the sickness of her 
grandmother, who, like a withered leaf on the topmost branch of 
a tree, wanted but a blast to disattach and set it free. Ethna 
paid her daily visits, bringing her little delicacies to tempt her 
appetite; and the old woman liked the sound of her voice, 
rambled on about Mr. Vincent, who was so pleasant and civil 
spoken to the poor; the old times that were so warm and 
bright; and the queer changes that came upon the world since 
she was young. ‘“’Tis dark, dark,” she would murmur, “ but 
the dawn is near.” 

Artie O’Brien. 


(Concluded next month). 


SICKNESS. 


DA: after day, His warning word God spoke— 
I heard, but strove to hide in folly’s crowd ; 

Night after night, He called to me aloud— 

Yet, though I knew ’twas He the silence broke, 

My guilty fears and not my sorrow woke. 

I heard the Voice, I felt the searching Eye— 

I would not kneel, I dared nut move to fly, 

But sullenly refused Christ’s sweetest yoke. 


He pitied me, and still my welfare planned; 

He loved me as a Father, though He frowned— 
With saving sickness made me understand 

How wise it were to heed His slightest sound. 
He pitied me, for lightly pressed His Hand; 
He loved me, for He let me kiss its wound. 





( 31 ) 


FANNY 8. D. AMES. 


A Few Nores IN REMEMBRANCE. 


I” whatever other respects it may have failed in its duty, this 

Magazine has during the last quarter of a century done its 
best to preserve the names of many who have helped in the 
formation of a Catholic literature in the English language, The 
author of “ Marion Howard” and several other excellent tales 
died recently ; and we have put ourselves in communication with 
her relatives, from whom we have learned the following particulars 
of her life. 

Fanny Sarah Darnell Ames was born in Buckinghamshire, on 
the 2nd of August, 1835. She was the eldest of a family of nine 
sisters and brothers, but for the first three years of her life she 
reigned supreme as an only child. Her young mother, a very 
intelligent woman, devoted herself, not quite judiciously, to the 
development of the little creature’s remarkably precocious faculties, 
with the result that the child knew the alphabet before she was 
three years old, and at five could read and understand Keightley’s 
“ History of England,” a somewhat heavy and voluminons work. 
lier attempts at composition, especially in verse, began at a very 
early age, the basket containing ‘‘ Puella’s Ideas ” (so she called 
her scribblings) being an important item in the nursery furniture. 
Her juvenile audience received every fresh product of her pen 
with a reverential appreciation since transferred only to 
Shakespeare or Byron or in some instances to Tennyson. 

Her father, a very gifted man, took an affectionate pride in 
the talents of his eldest daughter. Under his guidance she made 
progress in geology, physical science, and in the more feminine 
accomplishment of modern languages and even in Latin, one of 
her girlish exercises being a metrical version of one of the books of 
the Eneid. But the first of her compositions to which her father 
gave the glory of print was a sermon against the evils of war, 
about the time of the expedition to the Crimea, 

Though belonging to a strictly Protestant family, and we 
think without any Catholic associations, Fanny Ames from an 
early age felt drawn to the Catholic Church. One of her sisters. 





312 The Irish Monthly 


who followed her into the Church and is now a nun, mentions 
that, while quite a child, out walking with the nurse and her 
sisters, she one day, passing a Catholic Church, laid her hand on 
the gate and said: “I swear I will be a Vatholic.”’ 

In her fourteenth year she paid with her father a visit to the 
Jesuit College in Lancashire, Stonyhurst, and was shown over 
the place by a young convert, still living, Father Ignatius Grant. 
S.J. About this time she made up her mind to enter the Church, 
though she did not carry out her resolution till 1860, when she 
was received by Father Etheridge* in St. Francie Xavier's, 
Liverpool, being then twenty-five years old. She was staying 
with Catholic friends, the Yates family, and had probably gone 
there for this purpose. 

Her first book, “ Marion Howard,” appeared in 1868, and was 
very favourably received. It ran through several editions. It 
was followed by some shorter tales, “ Maggie’s Rosary,” “ The 
Carpenter’s Holiday,” ‘‘ Peter’s Journey,” “The Fifth of November 
and other Stories,” etc. In 1877 appeared her second long story. 
‘<The Lady of Neville Court;’’ and since then the pleasant volumes, 
‘* Wishes on Wings,” and “ Great Doors on Little Hinges.” 

The names of a few of her contributions, chiefly to Catholic 
periodicals but also to “The Leisure Hour,” are: “ Flowars for 
the Dark Months,” “Tim and ‘Tom,’ ‘‘Cabs and Cabmen,’’ 
“ Betty’s Mangle;” while “ Parted Streams’”’ is the last of her 
longer stories. In our own pages Miss Ames is represeuted by 
“An Old Stone” at page 17 of our tenth volume (1&82). When 
Dr. P. W. Joyce contributed to a subsequent volume (1884) an 
article on the same subject, “The Lia Fail and the Westminster 
Coronation Stone,” an editorial note ought certainly to have 
referred the reader back to the earlier article, separated from it by 
only two years. 

A more serious work, on which Miss Ames had spent much 

* In a lecture at Bristol in 1890, on the centenary of the opening of the Jesuit 
Church in that town, Father Grant mentions that Father Etheridge was himself the 
ron of a convert, whose conversion was helped by a dream. One night he saw a 
Catholic Chapel, at the door of which wore two marble slabs bearing foreign 
namen; and it was ‘borne in upon him ’’ that, when he should find tha‘ chapel, 
he would have found the true Church. Some years after, he found at Winchester 
the chapel of his dream, and on the tablets the names of French refugee priests 
who had served there. He became a Catholic, and his sons John and James, were 


eminent Jesuits—the formcr died Assistant to the Father-Cicneral at Rome, the 
“ter Bishop of Demarara, 





Almond Blossoms in the Spring. 313 


time and labour, remains still in manuscript, namely, a Catholic 
History of Scotland. It comes down, however, only to the death 
of Robert Bruce. 

Those who knew Frances Ames most intimately testify to the 
nobility of her character and the beautiful unselfishness of her 
life. Her choice was to spend her last years in Boulogne-sur- 
mer in her picturesque old house on the ramparts that surround 
the Haute Ville. She is buried near the great Cathedral which 
she loved. 


ALMOND BLOSSOMS IN THE SNOW. 


So wintry was the sky I could not think of Spring, 
(Would it ever come to me?) 

The snow lay on the earth, the birds forgot to sing 
(Almond-tree, sweet Almond-tree !) 


I wandered wearily and viewed the sleeping world, 
(Would it ever wake fur me ?) 

The world of sleeping life, of buds and leaves close-furled— 
(Almond-tree, sweet Almond-tree !) 


Then suddenly arose a vision strangely fair, 
(Was it sent to comfort me?) 

Frail blossom-laden boughs waved in the chilly air, 
(Almond-tree, sweet Almond-tree !) 


A rosy mist of flowers above the glimmering snow, 
(Did they bud and bloom for me?) 

A flush of sunset pink—an evanescent glow ; 
(Almond-tree, sweet Almond-tree !) 


Faint whisperings could be heard amid the fairy bloom, 
(Blossom still my flowers for me!) 

Warm breath of life and hope stole through the snowy gloom, 
(Almond-tree, sweet Almond-tree !) 


And rapturous living joy my dim eyes could discern, 
(Greater wonder could there be ?) 
What better thing in life than hope’s swift glad return ? 
(Almond-tree, sweet Almond-tree !) 
Constance Hore. 


Vou. xxvi. No. 300 23 


( 314 ) 


CONTRIBUTIONS TO IRISH BIOGRAPHY.—No. 35. 


Tue South Munster ANTIQUARIAN SOocrery. 


Part II. —Rerv. M. Horean, ABRAHAM ABELL, AND 


WILLIAM WILLEsS. 


HE Rev. Matthew Horgan, popularly known and still 

remembered as “ Father Matt Horgan,” was born in 1773, 

in the townland of Ballinraha, which lies about a mile northwest 

of Waterloo chapel, Blarney. In this neighbourhood his ancestors 

once held lands and of his native parish Blarney, together with 

the adjoining parish of Whitechurch, he was P.P. during the 
greater portion of his olerical life. 

An excellent and devoted pastor, he was foremost in every 
movement for the social advancement of his people, into whose 
minds he sedulously sought to instil a love of healthful and 
innocent pastimes, a horror of meanness, and a detestation of 
itigation. His purse and his influence were theirs when weighed 
down by poverty and oppression. He shared in their joys and 
bore half their sorrows; and in all their innocent gaieties and 
amusements he participated. At the goal and pattern and other 
rustic assemblies he loved to be present; promoting by his 
countenance and approval, and controlling by the influence of his 
character, those rural sports and pleasures of which in his youthful 
days he was no inactive spectator. It was his boast that when at 
school in Charleville he was more famed for hurling and atbletics 
than for scholarship; and few could excel him at any time in 
flinging a mearog® so high or so far. 

His hospitality was unbounded, his door being open to all 
without distinction of creed or party; whilst his great reputation 
as an Irish scholar and antiquary procured him visits from many 
of the celebrities who from time to time came to see the 
neighbouring famous castle of Blarney. 

Archeology and Irish literature were to him a passion. 
Although eminently practical in all that concerned his country, 
he viewed her interests through a medium coloured by the past. 


* Quoit or stone, 








Contributions to Irish Biography. 315 


Not only was he profoundly versed in the tongue of the Gael, but 
he did all that he possibly could to promote its cultivation. Old 
Irish MSS. he copied and transcribed in a clear and beautiful 
hand; and he translated into Irish with extraordinary facility and 
success. His translations from Horace* and others of the classics, 
of Moore’s Melodies and other popular poems into Irish, were 
wonderfully faithful and harmonious; but through the unaccount- 
able dispersion of his literary collection at his death these trans- 
lations are now mostly lost. 

OF the old Ossianic lays and bardic poetry and legends he was 
an ardent admirer; and he patronised to the last the now extinct 
Seanchides and Scealuidhes (or story tellers) one of whom named 
Sullivan he maintained permanently as oneof his household. An 
enthusiastic admirer, too, of our national music; his house was the 
resort of every wandering piper—one or more of whom always 
attended his festive gatherings. One of his favourite projects 
was & pipers’ cungress, after the style of the bardic meetings held 
at Bruree and Raheen in the early part of the eighteenth century. 
This was meant to be the prelude to a collection of the whole body 
of Irish music, which William Forde had begun under William 
Elliot Hudson, a project that, through the death of all three, was 
never realised. 

Next to his love for the ancient literature of Ireland was his 
reverent regard for her round towers. Of these he erected two 
modern fac-similes, one to each of the “ Chapels’”’ that he builtt 


“In Mr. R. Sainthill’s “ Olla Podrida,’’ vol. 1, page 247, are to be found two 
Odes in Irish, which were addressed to him by Father Matthew Horgan, in 
circumstances which Sainthill describes as follows :—‘‘ One evening (November 
29th, 1839) the Rev. M. H., Member of the Royal Irish Academy, having to speak 
on the Irish language, at the Cork Scientific Society, illustrated its capabilities and 
fluency, by reciting amongst others, all his own, a translation in Irish of Horace’s 
20th Ode, addressed to Maecenas, previously to reading which he remarked to his 
audience, in his inimitably naive and quaint manner, that if any person should 
pay him an.unexpected visit he would only require his self-invited guest to send 
beforehand some jars of good whiskey It was the fist time I had the pleasure of 
meeting this learned Irish antiquary ; and having some 18 years old whiskey in 
my possession I sent him a portion of it the next day, with a note in Irish cypher. 
This brought me in return these two (des, and laid the foundatiou of the friendship 
which to me so agreeably subsists between us.”’ 

f A friend who well recollects Father Horgan has informed the present writer 
that if circumstances had favoured him he would have rivalled that famous 
architect of old, Goban Saer. Amongst others Father Horgan was architect of 
the old parish chapel at Queenstown, on whose site the present noble Cathedral of St. 
Colman stands. 


316 The Irish Monthly. 


at Waterloo, near Blarney, and at Wh:techurch. It was his wish to 
be buried in one of these round towers, but this wish his relatives 
disregarded and he was interred inside the ‘ Chape! ” of Waterloo 
instead. Though a believer in their oriental original, he held that 
the Irish round towers were in Ireland designed for the same 
purpose as those which he erected, viz.: as church belfries. 

Father Horgan was one of the original labourers in Ogham 
discovery, and in fact, as is stated in Brash’s “ Ogam Inscribed 
Monuments,” he discovered the clue to these ancient inscriptions 
in the key-word “ Maqui,’’ some years before Bishop Graves 
made the same discovery. With his friend Abell he once went 
to Callan Mountain, Co. Clare, then no easy journey, in order to 
test the authenticity of the so-called Conan monument there, 
which had been impeached on high authority. He was also an 
active explorer of the cryptic chambers in our ancient earth works : 
and laboured effectively in unearthing several specimens of the 
é Fulachda,” or cooking-places of the early hunters and nomad 
races of our island. 

Yet with all his variety of ocoupation, Father Horgan’s pen was 
never idle. Under his well-known signature “ Viator ” there was 
no more constant contritutor than he to the local press, on such 
divergent subjects as politics, statistics, agriculture, topography, 
poetry, legends, history, and antiquities—his writings overflowing 
with recondite learning, and characterised by a curious quaintness 
of style. 

His sole publication, apart from the newspaper press, was a 
short Irish poem of fifty-five stanzas. It was written on the 
occurrence of a tragic incident in the Tithe warfare, when in 
1834, twelve persons were shot dead and eight severely wounded 
at Gortroe, near Rathcormaco, Co. Cork, by the soldiery called out 
by Parson Ryder to enable him to distrain for tithes that were 
then due to him. The titlepage of this now exceedingly scarce 
work, consisting of 71 pages, 12mo, in all, runs as follows :— 

‘**Gortroe ; or, Lamentation of the Widows for their sons, who were slaughtered 
on the 18th December, 1834. In imitation of the Ancient Irish Caoine or Dirge. 
Together with the Examination of the Principal Witnesses on the Inquest, the 


Charge of the Coroner, and the Verdict of the Jury. Illustrated with (3) 
Engravings, Cork: J. Higgins, 1835.” 


He also wrote another Irish Poem : “ Caher Conri, a Metrical 
Legend, edited by John Windele, which was printed for Private 








Contributions to Irish Biography. 317 


Circulation. Cork, 1860.” 32 pp., 8vo. 

This serio-comic poem of 58 stanzas was written on the 
occasion of an antiquarian excursion by Father Horgan, Abraham 
Abell, Wm. Willes, and John Windele, to Dingle, Co. Kerry, round 
which locality lies a rich field of primeval Irish antiquities. A 
visit to Caher Conri, a great Cyclopean structure on the western 
extremity of Sleeve Mis mountain, formed part of their proceed- 
ings. | 

One of the oldest structures in Ireland, Caher Conn, presents 
@ very interesting specimen of those barbaric fastnesses which 
were raised in ages of great insecurity when such sites were 
selected, not for their beauty, but their wider range of prospect, 
and were deemed most eligible when least accessible. Of 
“ Conn,” the ancient Irish chieftain from whom this fortress of 
old takes its name, Windele gives a long and interesting account, 
as also an elaborate description of the ‘‘Caher,’’ as it stood when 
he visited it. Owing to its great height and difficult approach, 
Father Horgan was unable to make the ascent to it with his 
companions; and whilst waiting for them lower down the 
mountain, his thoughts took a poetic turn and he composed 
several stanzas of a “ Lay ” which he afterwards completed in the 
form published by his friend, Windele. The translation 
accompanying it" is from the pen of another Corkman, the too 
famous Dr. -Kenealy,f who achieved such notoriety in connection 
with the Tichbourne Claimant Trial. 

It is to be regretted that with the exception of Father Horgan’s 
“ Gortroe ” and “ Caher Conri ” we have no other printed relics of 
him left. Several volumes of his manuscript are however said to be 
still preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, and in St. 
Colman’s College, Fermoy, Co. Cork. 

No man was ever more wholly devoid of avarice or selfseecking, 
or regardless of worldly wealth. Money he only regarded so far 


* Windele states that another English Version of Caher Conri was made by 
William Dowe, a Cork poet included in O’Donoghue’s Dictionary of Irish Pucts, 
By far the most interesting portion of the long and erudite preface, 43 pages, 
which Windele has prefixed to this poem is that which he has devoted to the 
biographical sketches of his brother antiquarians, Father Horgan, Abraham Abell, 
and William Willes, which are summarised in the present article. 


Tt “ Brallaghan or the Deipnosophists ” appears to be the only work in book- 
. form by Dr. Kenealy, published by him whilst still residing in his native city. 
A notice of him will be found in O'Donoghue’s Dictionary of Irish Poets. 


318 The Irish Monthly, 


as if enabled him to relieve want, to purchase books, and to gather 
around him those cheerful associates whose society added to the 
pleasure of his genial existence. 

The sum of three shillings was all the money found in Father 
Horgan’s possession on his death, which occurred on the Ist of 
March, 1849. 

Placed over his remains* on the right hand side of the 
sanctuary of the Chapel at Waterloo,t Blarney, is the following 
inscription :'— 

“Orate Pro Anima 

Rev. Mar. Horean, 
Parochi de Blarney et Whitechurch, 
Hujus Sacelli Fundatoris 
Cujus Corpus Infra Jacet,* 
Obiit Anno Suae aetatis, 75, 
Sui Ministerii, 45, 
Cal. Martii, 1849. 
R.L.P. 


WILLIAM WILLEs was a native of Cork, and belonged to a 
family distinguished for professional talent. He was an artist of 
considerable reputation, and practised as such in London for many 
years. He possessed besides excellent literary tastes; and was 
the contributor of papers on the Fine Arts to Bolster’s Quarterly 
Magazine (Cork) and to other periodicals. To his enquiries, made 
ostensibly in search of the picturesque, was due the more 
intimate knowledge acquired later by his fellow-South Munster 
antiquarians of the singularly interesting antiquarian remains 
which abound in the South-west of Munster. For a short 
time previous to his death Mr. Willes held the post of Head 
Master at the Cork School of Design. Hedied in January, 1851. 


* It is pleasant to be able to record that amongst the Cloyne clergy of to-day is 
a grand-nephew of Father Horgan, the Rev. John O'Riordan, M.R.S.A.1., C.C., 
Cloyne, who possesses in no small degree the Irish scholarship and the literary 
and antiquarian tastes for which his Rev. kinsman was remarkable. Like many 
another Irish priest, however, the pressure of parochial work precludes his doing 
full justice to the talents and attainments with which he is endowed in this way. 
Father Horgan had also a clerical nephew, the Rev. J. Horgan, C.C., of Mitchels- 
town, whose early death was due to his devoted labours during the famine times, 

+ So called from a bridge here, which was built in the year of the Battle of 


“aterloo, 





Contributions to Irish Biography. 319 


A namesake and possibly a relative was that other Corkman, Sir 
James Shaw Willes, who rose to be judge of the English Court of 
Common Pleas, vide Webb’s Compendium of Irish Biography. 

ABRAHAM ABELL was born st Pope’s Quay, Cork, on the 11th 
April, 1783. His father, Mr. Richard Abell, and his ancestors 
for generations were engaged in commerce; and he too was 
actively employed in business until late in life. The Abells were 
an old Quaker family, who held high positions in the Society of 
Friends ever since its establishment in Cork two hundred years 
back. Mr. Abell was prominently known in his native city for 
his long connection with its most valable public institutions, 
literary, scientific, and charitable—of all of which he was a most 
active and intelligent member. He was one of the founders of 
the (still existing) Cork Literary and Scientific Society; and of 
the (defunct) Cuvierian Suciety ; he was a manager of the Cork 
Institution; treasurer to the Cork Library and to the Cork 
Dispensary and Humane Society ; managing director of the Cork 
Savings’ Bank; and a member of the Royal Irish Academy, the 
Irish Archwological, the Camden, and the South Munster 
Antiquarian Societies. His happy temperament and the broad 
liberality of his opinions secured for him the love and esteem of 
every class and creed; whilst his social qualities gained him 
welcome access to many circles. Ordinary people regarded him 
as an oddity; and in point of fact, he was on the whole, a curious 
compound of learaing, eccentricity, whim, and sagacity. 

Magnetism and archeology were his favourite pursuits. As 
regards the latter he was best known as a numismatist, collector of 
ancient relics, rare and curious books, &c. In 1848, whilst 
labouring under a fit of depression, to which he was oocasionally 
though not often subject, he burnt his entire collection of books, 
papers, music, &c., an act which he regretted when too late. He 
at once began to collect again; and left behind him at his death 
a large and well selected library and a considerable variety of 
antiquarian and scientific objects. 

Although possessed of considerable literary capabilities his 
morbid antipathy to writing marred the hopes his friends often 
expressed that he would leave some permanent evidence of his 
scholarship and ability. His sole literary effort appearing in 
type, was the “ Origin of St. Patrick’s-Pot,” what Windele has 
reprinted from a Cork newspaper in the preface to “ Cahir Conri,” 
from which this notice is taken. . 





320 The Irish Monthly. 


Windele further relates several curious and extraordinary 
instances of Abell’s eccentric habits and ways. Of these it will 
be sufficient to mention here that he always read, often into the 
night, standing up all the while, and with no fire in his room, 
even in the depth of winter, and that he made it a practice to 
walk on his birthday a mile for every year that he had attained. 
The last effort of this kind that he achieved, was to walk from 
Cork to Youghal and back on his fifty-eighth birthday. He 
died unmarried on the 12th of February, 1851, in his 68th year. 
Abell’s younger sister, Mary, who married Mr. John Knott, of 
Dublin, was the authoress of ‘‘ Two Months at Kilkee, with an 
account of a Voyage down the Shannon,” which was published 
in 1536. 


JAMES COLEMAN. 


MY ORATORY LAMP. 


ORD! Thou hast kindled all Thy lamps to-night 
For me, the lowliest parasite of earth ; 
Thy voice gave utterance, Thy will gave birth 
To all these streaming galaxies of light. 
If Thy creative word can thus delight 
One who for ever travails from the dearth 
Of love and knowledge, ’midst the boundless girth 
That wraps Thee formless in the infinite, 
Let me be generous with Thee, dear Lord! 
Let me enkindle one bright lamp for Thee— 
Light for the light, the true Incarnate Word— 
A feeble flame for burning ecstacy. 
Seest Thou, blind to star and glowing sun, 
This lamp, that burns before Thine exiled one? 


bP. A. SHEEHAN 








( 321 ) 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 
CuHaprEr XIII, 


RETROSPECTIVE. 


You that wanton in affluence, 
Spare not now to be bountiful, | 
Call your poor to regale with you, 
All the lowly, the destitute. - 


Let the needy be banqueted. 
TENNYSON. 


é“ Yeg,” said the Colonel, “it’s all over. Nothing left for 
Kittleshot but the paying of the piper.”’ 

It was the week after the féte, and, seated in Snuggery, Mr. 
and Mrs. Ridingdale were talking over the festivities with the 
Colonel. 

é It has partly realised one of my life-dreams,” the Squire 
began. “I question if the Dale has ever been entertained on 
such a sumptuous scale. There was something for everybody, 
and I fancy nobody was forgotten.” 

“ Not even the sick and the bed-ridden,” Mrs. Ridingdale 
remarked with a satisfied smile. 

“Thanks to you,” rejoined the Colonel. ‘ Fact is, you and 
your husband ran the whole show.”’ 

é Well,” laughed the Squire, “when the purse of Fortunatus 
is actually put into your hand, it would be a sin not to dip into it 
deeply.” 

Mrs. Ridingdale sighed involuntarily. It was true that her 
husband had, by his counsel and suggestions, caused the 
millionaire’s money to flow freely and lavishly; but alas! the 
Squire himself, instead of being benefited, was a heavy loser by the 
transaction. For the first time in his life he had run into debt 
with the tailor and the shoemaker. As long as the boys were 
neat and tidy Mrs. Ridingdale was ordinarily content, but an 
inspection of their best suitsin view of the garden party had 
convinced her that Mr. Kittleshot’s invitations could not be 
accepted for the bigger lads unless new clothes were forthcoming. 





322 The 1ruh Monthly. 


Then came the discovery that only one or two of the boys had any 
kind of foot-gear save clogs and slippers, and that even Hilary 
and Harry had scandaolised, and in some cases edified, the 
inhabitants of Ridingdale by a Sunday wearing of sabots. So nearly 
a dozen pairs of shoes were added to the burden of five or six Eton 
suits lying heavily on Mrs. Ridingdale’s mind. 

‘‘Glad you got your own way about the school children’s 
dinner,” said the Colonel. ‘ A tea is better than nothing, but 
when there’s plenty of tin, a meal of cheap cake and hot water is 
the acme of meanness.” 

The Squire laughed heartily. 

“ And that was the only point upon which Kittleshot opposed 
me. But I was resolute. If the Dale was to be feasted, I deter- 
mined it should have its beef and beer, and that every man, woman, 
and child in the three parishes should have a genuine meal.”’ 

“Two meals, you mean, dear,” said Mrs. Ridingdale, trying 
to forget her own anxieties; ‘‘for on each day a five o’clock tea 
followed the one o’olock dinner.”’ 

“ O that was in my plan, of course. What I wanted was that 
there should be eight long hours of enjoyment, In fact, I was on 
the point of suggesting supper.”’ 

“ Must draw the line somewhere,” muttered the Colonel. 

“Jack has no mercy on a millionaire,” laughed Mrs. 
Ridingdale. 

“ My darling, why should one ? He doesn’t need it. Though, 
if you come to think of it, it is an act of mercy to show him how 
to get rid of his money.” 

They were silent for a space. The boys at the far end of 
the garden had been partioularly lively all through the evening ; but 
now such a captivating snatch of harmony floated across the lawn 
from Sniggery, that the inhabitants of Snuggery set themselves 
to listen. Summer evenings at Ridingdale were wont to be vocal, 
and it was the delight of the young choristers to surprise father 
and mother with something new—a three part glee or madrigal 
that had been practised in secret, a round or catch taught them 
at the Chantry, or a favourite chorus learnt long ago at home, 
half-forgotten and now revived. 

But to-night the boys were singing whatever verses they 
could call to mind of the “ Lady of Shalott,” a cantata the 
Colonel had introduced them to, and portions of which they had 


i 





Doings sn the Dale. 323 


pioked up during successive visits to the Chantry. Lance’s high 
soprano, strengthened by the clear piping of Alfred and Gareth, 
blended well with Willie Murrington’s and George’s mezzo voices, 
while Hilary and Harry added a contralto of depth and purity. 


“ All in the blue unclouded weather 
Thick-jewelled shone the saddle-leather, 
The helmet and the helmet-feather 
Burn’d like one burning flame together, 

As he rode down to Camelot. 


As often through the purplo night, 

Below the starry clusters bright, 

Some bearded meteor, trailing light, 
Moves over stil] Shalott.’’ 


The joyous, luscious harmonies of Mr. Wilfrid Bendell’s music 
fell on appreciative ears and made the June twilight as joound as 
summer noonday. In the bushes behind the budding roses that 
hedged the lawn on every side, the birds were still warbling; but 
for a little while the carolling of the boys was the only music 
heard in Snuggery. 

Then came a pause, and hot discussion in Sniggéry as the boys 
tried to recall the words of the next atanza. Soon, however— 


His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed. 


and then in very truth— , 


‘ Tirra lirra,’ by the river, 
Sang Sir Lancelot. 


“ Sir Lancelot isin good voice to-night,’’ said the happy father 
when he had applauded the singers. 

“ And they are all ia good spirits,’ Mrs. Ridingdale remarked. 
“I was so afraid this Timington business would cause a re-action, 
and make them a little dull and discontented for a time.” 

“ No fear of that,” rejoined the Colonel. ‘“‘ I won't say they re 
like us—glad it’s over; but I know they re not too sorry.” 

“éI thought it so nice of Mr. Kittleshot to have asked all the 
children weeks and weeks ago, what they enjoyed most. Every- 
thing they mentioned was there—even Lance’s clown ”— 
Mrs. Ridingdale said laughingly. 

“And Maggie’s balloon,” put in the Colonel. 

“ And Alfred’s miniature railway,” the Squireadded. ‘ Mr. 


324 The Irish Monthly. 


Kittleshot would have hired an entire circus for the sakeof Gareth’s 
elephant, if I had not remonstrated.”’ 

“ But the elephant was there,” said the Colonel. 

“Ó yes, and a performing pony. They were hired for three days.” 

é Well,” the Colonel went on, “ I congratulate you upon getting 
the Artillery band. That appealed to everybody—old and young.” 

“ Almost as much as the fire-works,” Mrs. Ridingdale suggested. 

é“ More, madam, much more,” the Colonel maintained ; for 
music was the old soldier’s darling hobby, and the hearing of a 
good regimental band was to him the height of happiness. 

While Mrs. Ridingdale and the Colonel were engaged in a 
merry war of words in regard to the greatest attraction of the 
féte, the Squire noticed that a sudden silence had fallen upon 
Sniggery. A few minutes later he thought he saw a figure creeping 
stealthily up that side of the lawn that lay on the blind side of 
Snuggery. Surprises were the order of fine summer evenings at 
the Hall, and Mr. and Mrs. Ridingdale were always ready to be 
surprised and pleased—though not unfrequently some little magpie 
would inform them beforehand of the treat in store, lest perhaps 
the shook of pleasure should be too great. 

A second figure had now left Sniggery, and the Squire thought 
he heard footsteps on the terrace. The grass was a merciful 
silencer of wooden soles, but the gravel of the walk would always 
betray a clog-shod foot. And yet so quietly had the two boys 
gone to work that, when Harry struck a chord upon the harp, both 
Mrs. Ridingdale and the Colonel were genuinely surprised. 

Dark night had not yet “slain the evening.” A sprinkling of stars 
came out in the clear purple, and a light wind rose from the west. 
One solitary thrush was prolonging his compline. Harry’s prelude 
was low and sweet, and when Lance raised his voice in Thomas 
Dekker’s most perfect lyrio, father and mother instinctively joined 
hands. 


““ Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers ? 
O sweet content ! 
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed ? 
O punishment ! 
Yost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed 
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers f 
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content : 
Work apace, apace, apace, apace ; 
Honest labour bears a lovely face; 
Then hey nonny, nonny, hey nonny, nonny ! 








Doings in. the Dale. 325 


Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring ? 
O sweet content ! 
Swimm’st thou in wealth, yet sink’st in thine own tears ? 
O punishment! © 
Then he that patiently want’s burden bears 
No burden bears, but is a king, aking! 
O sweet content, O sweet, O sweet content ! 
Work apace, apace, apace, apace ; 
Honest labour bears a lovely face ; 
Then hey nonny, nonny, hey nonny, nonny ! 


All Sniggery had crept up to the neighbourhood of Snuggery 
as soon as the prelude began, and as the last chord was struck 
upon the harp the applause was great. But Lance came and 
knelt at his mother’s feet. 

“ Did you really like it, mother dear?” he asked, looking 
up. 

‘*T can’t tell you how much, darling,” she said, taking his face 
between her hands. ‘‘ Where did you get it, Lance ?”’ 

“ Father Horbury gave it to me, quite a long time ago. But 
he said I wasn’t to sing it when Mr. Kittleshot was about. 
That’s the reason, mother, you haven’t heard it before.” 

‘I'he Squire and his friend laughed heartily. 

“He thought Kittleshot would take it asa personality, did 
he ?’’ asked the Colonel. ‘ ‘Swimm ’st thou in wealth ? 

O punishment!’ Ha,ha!—I see. Poor Croesus !” 

As they rose to return to the house, the mother walked between 
Harry and Lance—each clinging to her affectionately. 

“Such golden numbers deserve golden slumbers,”’ she said. 

‘‘ Ours are nearly always golden, mother,” rejoined Harry. 

é“ Always,” Lance insisted, ‘‘ except we ve been bad chaps.” 

“ Well, my darlings, your lovely lyric ct came just at the right 
moment, and cured me of a heart ache.” 

The two boys, full of solicitude, pressed hard to know the 
cause of their mother’s heartache, but when she assured them that 
it was gone, they kissed her in silence, and went back to the lawn 
to bring the harp indoors. 

“ But I know what it was,” Lance said to his brother. 

é What?” asked Harry, looking anxious. 

Bills. All those new togs we had must have come to heaps 
of money, you know.” 

‘We'd better take Billy’s offer, I’m thinking.” 


326 The Irish Monthly. 


é“ Would it save anything ?” 

é Course it would. Let's ask Hilary.” 

So just before bed-time as Mr. and Mrs. Ridingdale were 
going into Committee of Supply, and the former was reluctantly 
sacrificing for present needs a sum of money he had put aside for 
his wife’s private purse, Hilary and Harry came to the drawing- 
room to tell of Billy’s offer. 





CHAPTER XIV. 


FRIENDS IN NIKED- 


1 am a chronicler;jof little things,— 
Comings and goings, children’s words and ways, 
Chance guests, new hosts, and single happy days, 
And household legends. These have been the springs 
Of much of my best knowledge : I have striven 
To make my narrow lonely world a glass . 
Where shapes and shadowa, like a breath, might paas, 
Dimly refiecting motions out of Heaven. 
F. W. Faser. 


Mr. Kittleshot was longing to give the Squire some substantial 
proof of his esteem. All things considered, Crosus was a 
thoughtful, as well asa generous, man, and he knew that Mr. 
Ridingdale had sacrificed much valuable timo in helping to make 
the late house-warming the enormous success it had certainly 
been. But the more the millionaire considered the matter, the 
greater appeared the difficulty of making it practicable. And 
his first obstacle was, strangely enough, the Colonel. 

During the last month or two, Kittlesbot’s intimacy with the 
old soldier had passed into the stage of steady friendship, and the 
two men now discussed things with the freedom of brothers. When 
therefore the millionaire asked the other’s advice as to the precise 
way in which something worth the having might be offered to the 
Squire, Croesus was hardly prepared for such a show of resentment 
on the part of Colonel Ruggerson. That Ridingdale. himself 
would have to be approached with the greatest caution, Mr. 
Kittleshot could well understand, but that the poor Squire’s 
closest friend should show displeasure at the mere suggestion of 
anything to the advantage of an overworked father with a short 
purse and a long family, was to the man uf money a vexatious 
puzzle. Could it be that Ruggerson was influenced by jealousy ? 





Doings in the Dale. 327 


The most commonplace character may be a complex one; but 
the Colonel’s character without being commonplace was ultra-. 
complex and full of entirely evident contradictions. The most 
generous of men will sometimes act meanly, apparently just 
because he is, for the most part, of a benevolent disposition. Now 
the Colonel’s feeling for the Squire was that of a father for his 
son, and in any necessity Ridingdale did not ask for help the 
fault was hisown. But, curiously enough, the well-being of the 
Ridingdale family was so much to the Colonel that he was apt to 
regard his abiding good-will as the equivalent of actual help. 
Perhaps this is only another way of saying that he was not far- 
sighted, and that he lacked the instinct of looking below the 
surface of things. He rarely divined when help was needed 
most, or what kind of assistance would bring most satisfaction to 
the father and mother of so many growing boys. He knew that 
the Squire, proud and self-reliant as he undoubtedly was, had no 
foolish sensitiveness on the score of accepting gifts: the Colonel 
might haye known that the son of his old comrade was the last 
man in the world to ask for money so long as there was a crust in 
the pantry, or a shred of clothing in his children’s wardrobe. 

‘he Squire, while fully appreciating all that the Colonel did, 
was obliged to admit that his greatest benefactor was Billy 
Lethers. No William of Deloraine was ever so good at need as 
the retired clog-maker. How to save the Ridingdale family 
expense was Billy’s constant study. ‘There seemed to be nothing 
in the shape of a tool that the professional gossip could not handle. 
A man eminently handy himself, he had the power of inspiring 
others with a like handiness. ‘he lads owed all their skill in 
carpentry to Lethers, and while there were many things they 
could make, there was scarcely anything they could not mend. 
Two or three times in the week Billy was sure to appear at the 
lIall, and it was seldom he came empty-handed; but if by chance 
he brought nothing, he was sure to leave behind him some solid 
item of work, mechanical or horticultural. 

Hilly’s latest offer had been of a very practical character, 
and the boys woudered a little why he had not thought of making 
it before. As a matter of fact it had been in his mind for several 
years, but as it was a piece of work connected with his own trade, 
and might to some extent affect the business of his successor, 
Billy had hesitated to suggest it. Now, however, he had made 


328 The Irish Monthly. 


a satisfactory arrangement with his former foreman, the man in 
possession of his old shop in the High Street, and there was 
‘nothing left to do but show the Ridingdale lads how to re-iron 
their clogs and, generally, to keep them in repair. 

So one warm day in June when the Colonel and Mr. Kittleshot 
had decided to take a boat up the broad river that ran through 
the lower end of the Hall-farm, and were looking about the place 
for two or three rowers, they came across the lads they were in 
search of, seated in an out-house with Billy Lethors in their midst, 
each hammering lustily at the clog upon his last. The workers 
were all very hot and somewhat grimy, and the smell of leather 
and wood filled the atmosphere. 

Billy rose hastily to apologise for himself and the boys. 

é What’s all this? ” asked the amazed Colonel. 

“Most interesting!’’ ejaculated Mr. Kittleshot fumbling 
with a knot in the string of his pince-nes. 

Billy, cap in hand, and a trifle nervous in the presence of the 
two great men who had appeared on the scene so suddenly, began 
to praise the boys for their good workmanship. ‘The lads them- 
selves, unrolling their shirt sleeves, looked as if they had been 
detected in the act of tart-stealing. 

é“ Well,” said the Colonel when Billy had finished his 
panygeric, “ think they've done enough P ”’ 

Billy made haste to assure the Colonel that the young 
gentlemen had worked much too long, and Hilary, answering for 
himself and the rest, promised they should be down at the river 
within a quarter of an hour. 

Mr. Kittleshot was in high feather to-day. He had stolen a 
march upon the Colonel, and the recollection of it was very sweet 
to the millionaire. Ridingdale had actually asked a favour; but 
in doing so the Squire little thought how great a favour he had 
bestowed upon Kittleshot. Yet it was not exactly the personal 
service Croesus has longing to render and, while it gave him a 
certain satisfaction, it served to increase his desire to do something 
in which the Ridingdale family might participate. 

“IT am concerned about this lad Algernon Bhutleigh,” the 
Squire had said to Mr. Kittleshot earlier in the afternoon. “I 
cannot keep him here any longer, and to send him back to his 
mother is impossible. I was wondering if you could help me to 
get a clerkship, or something of that sort, for him. Perhaps you 
have no vacancy just now in your offices at Hardlow ? ” 

sa, 


Doings in the Dale, * 829 


é Isn't he rather young?” Kittleshot asked with interest. 

é Yes,” answered the Squire, regretfully, “barely fourteen. 
Much too young for a post of that kind. And, I fear, hardly 
competent.” 

The millionaire was silent for a few seconds. 

“ Supposing I kept him at some good commercial school for a 
year or two P ’’—he said at length. 

“That would be most generous—a benefaction of a lasting 
kind ; but I did not intend to ask for so much.” 

é“ 1£ you will be so kind as to choose the school, I will under- 
take his entire support for the next three years.” 

The two men rose in each other’s estimation immensely. That 
Mr. Kittleshot’s generosity was inspired by a feeling of kindness 
towards himself, the Squire did not doubt, for he had long ago 
discovered that Algernon was not liked by the millionaire. And 
to resent a personal favour was the last thing Ridingdale could be 
guilty of. 

é IT am under great obligations to you,” Kittleshot said as the 
two men walked up and down the lawn, “and I cannot tell you 
how glad I should be if you would give me an opportunity 
of ———’’ Mr. Kittleshot hesitated, and the Squire immediately 
replied :— 

é You have certainly made me your debtor now. AndI am 
sincerely grateful.” 

There was a suggestion of finality in the Squire’s tone that 
checked the further speech of the millionaire; who, nevertheless, 
would have returned to the attack if the Colonel had not suddenly 
appeared. 

é The good man was simply hungering to do us a kindness,” 
said Ridingdale to his wife that same night. ‘‘ And the prompt 
and generous—yes, and I will say gentlemanly—way in which 
he did it, makes it all the greater.’ 

‘‘There’s the boy’s wardrobe, dear,” sighed Mrs. Ridingdale. 

“My darling, he forgot nothing, When they came back 
from the river, he took me on one side and wanted to give mea 
blank cheque for present needs. I would not take the cheque, 
but I gladly promised to send him the bills,” 

“ Delightful!” ejaculated Mrs. Ridingdale—whose constant 
nightmare was an array of thread-bare coats and kneeless knicker- 
bockers. 


Vou. xxvr. No 300 24 


330 The Irish Monthly. 


“Ho makes only two conditions in regard to the school,” the 
Squire proceeded; “ first, that it be a place where boys are 
prepared for commerce, and secondly, an institution where corporal 
punishment is given generously and judiciously. For such an 
establishment I fear we must advertise.” 

“ Has Mr. Kittleshot seen the boy to-day.” 

é I think not, dear.” 

“I hope not. He and Lance have had another fight, and 
Algernon is badly marked.” 

“Do you know the circumstances ?” 

é“ All the boys say they are honourable to Lance, but I did 
not press them for details.” 

“ Lance is much too fond of fighting.” 

é I hope you are not anxious about him, dear. He is improving 
a little, I fancy. Harry was just like him at the same age.” 

“ Bo was his father at the same time of life,” the Squire said 
smilingly. 

A bell in the distance rang for night prayers. 

“Poor Algernon will need all the prayers he can get,” Mrs. 
Ridingdale whispered as they passed into the oratory. 

é“ Yes,” replied her husband, “ we must remember him day by 
day,” Davip BEARNE, 8.J. 

(To be continued). 


IN KILBRONEY CHURCH YARD. 
(NEAR RosTREVOR.) 


TEEP-WOODED, calm Rostrevor! thy sea-lake, 
What should it breathe but pleasant hopes, but life 
Love-leagued with health ? What else the musical strife 
Of winds and boughs and flying streams that flake 
With pearl the pine-fringe and the holly brake ? 
Yet here, ’neath the brown spoil from Winter’s knife, 
How many are the dead in youth, how rife 
Poor half-blown flowers no spring shall ever wake 


Now all thy beauty tells me of the dead, 
Sweet valley! To some quaint euthanasy 
The dancers of the Fairy Hill are fled ; 
Dust are thy kings in dust of Rosnaree ; 
And, crooned to stone by the incessant sea, 
Finn sleepeth, dreamless, on his thunderous bed. 


Grorecr O'Nruur, 8 J. 


( 331 ) 


‘OLAVIS ACROSTICA. 
A Key To “ Dustin Acrostics.” 
Part XVI. 


ENCEFORTH we shall not wait for a month to hear the 
reader say, “ [ give it up,” but we shall give the answers in 
the same number as the acrostics. Less space will thus be taken up 
in utilising the solutions given to me by the seoretary of the 
little knot of leading barristers (with two or three Right 
Reverend outsiders) who concocted the brilliant little book, 
“ Dublin Acrostics.” As one of our readers has remarked, this 
title was a punning allusion to double acrostics and to the old 
conundrum about Dublin. “ Why is Ireland sure to become rich ? 
Because its capital is always doublin’.”’ 
We dared to name last month the most distinguished survivor 
of that band of Acrosticians. ‘ F” is also the author of No. 29. 


In the first when reversed 
Many heroes were nursed 
Who filled the whole world with their fame. 
The second's accursed, 
Tis surely the worst 
Of all sources of sorrow and shame. 
The fetters now burst, 
The multitude durst 
Its inherited liberty claim. 
1. Emblems of pain. 
2. Slaying and slain, 
3. Certainly plain. 

1 must confess that, in reading this over, my only remark 
was: “ Well, the worst of all the sources of sorrow and shame 
ought to be sin ”’—and, a little to my surprise, I find that that was 
what “ E “intended. Those who understand the construction of 
a double acrostic know, from glancing at it, that the answer to 
the present one has two parts of three letters each, combining 
probably to form one word. Even with that hint about “sin,” 
few would guess focsin. The first reversed is (oc read backwards, 
cot; and even the greatest hero is nursed in a cradle. When the 
tocsin of liberty sounds, the nation isemancipated. The first of the 
“lights” or “‘ uprights ’’ must be a word beginning here with ¢ 
and ending with s, and “ thumbscrews”’ is what “ F'” intends by 





332 The Irish Monthly. 


‘emblems of pain.” O and I are the next initials; and the word 
which begins and ends with them is Orsini—the famous Orsini 
bomb. The last “light” is champaiga, a flat, open country, a plain, 
which is punningly described as “‘ certainly plain.” 

We passed over, as too long, Nos. 24 and 25. The answer to 
the first is crinolixe and petticoat, to the second croguet and cricket. 
For the same reason we pass over Mr. Kirby’s, No. 31, York and 
Rose; and for a different reason, No. 30 which turns upon 
farewell, The last of Mr. Kirby’s lights was kine. As the rinder- 
pest had then raised the price of cattle, he darkened his light 


thus : 
“ So dear, so dear,’’ the Miller's daughter grew— 
Oh dear! how dear poor pestered we’ve grown too.” 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


* 1, We begin with the two books with which we ended our last 
month’s Book Notes, announcing them a little before their time. 
*“‘ Virgo Preedicanda” is an exquisite little volume of ‘‘ Verses in our 
Lady’s Praise,” by the Rev. John Fitzpatrick, O.M.I., published by 
M. H. Gill and Son. The poems, which are all very short, are grace- 
ful and tender, and finished with loving care. Messrs. Ponsonby and 
Weldrick have evidently made this little shilling book a special 
triumph of their skill: it is a delightful piece of printing. ‘‘ Virgo 
Preedicanda’’ gives the Oblate Father high rank among the Laureates 
of the Madonna. 

There is a curious link between Father Fitzpatri¢k’s book and the 
other new book that we have joined with it in this first of our Notes. 
Most of his readers will fail to understand why the rhymes of some of 
his miniature lyrics are arranged precisely as they are. The lover of 
poetry is familiar with sonnets—one of Father Fitzpatrick’s favourite 
forms, which he manages very successfully—but few are at home 
among triolets and roundeaux, of which ‘ Virgo Preedicanda” 
furnishes several excellent examples. Now the construction of triolets 
and roundeaux and sundry other metrical artifices of the sort is 
explained practically, and (we venture to think) agreeably in Part V. 
of ‘‘ Sonnets on the Sonnet” just issued by Messrs. Longmans, Green 
and Co., of 39 Paternoster Row, London, and also of New York and 
Bombay. As this new book has the same Editor as this old Magazine, 
criticism perforce is reduced to this mere announcement, and to the 

_ expression of a hope that of the many sonnet-anthologies published 
during this dying century the present one will be found to be, not 


Notes on New Books. 330 


only the most curious and novel, as it certainly is, but also one of the 
most instructive and entertaining. Considering the narrow scope of 
the selection, the high average of literary merit and the variety of 
thought are surely remarkable. 


0 Pk Yattendon Hymns. Printed by Horace Hart, University Press, 
xford. 

This collection of English hymns does not strictly come within the 
sphere of our critical jurisdiction; but, as it has chanced to fall into 
our hands, we are glad to welcome the new translations of the Latin 
hymns of the Church by Mr. Robert Bridges, who, in the judgment 
of the most competent critics, holds a high rank amongst the poets of 
our time. Weare particularly interested in his versions of the Vent 
Creator Spiritus— which he calls “one of the very best in the Christian 
Anthology ”’—and of St. Bernard’s Jesu dulcis memorta, in which, like 
Judge O’Hagan, he makes the four lines of each stanza rhyme 
together. God will reward in his own time and way the faith and 
piety of those who make loving use of all these holy words. 


3. Pére Monnier’s Ward. By Walter Leckey. (Benziger: New 
York, Cincinnati, Chicago). 

This is a novel of 300 pages, of which the scene is laid in the 
the Adirondacks, with a few varieties in New York and even on Irish 
ground. The Irish part is so unreal that it makes us sceptical about 
the truthfulness of the rest of the local colouring. There is consider- 
able variety of well defined character; there is plenty of incident, 
and some vivacity of conversation; but we cannot give such a favour- 
able verdict as we have seen quoted from some American newspapers. 
No doubt these critics are much better judges of the degree of 
plausibility attained by the storyteller in his American scenes. Some 
of our Catholic writers in the United States seem to be too fond of 
slang. They do not aim at the classic purity of Nathaniel Hawthorne 
and many other transatlantic writers. ‘‘A cold dinner destroys the 
healthy appetency ’—‘‘ Deputizing one of the boys toring the bell ”— 
strange words and idioms occur frequently and are not calculated 
to improve the style of the young reader. There are frequent 
examples of what we have noticed before—the admiration expressed 
for wit which to us seems chiefly latent. ‘‘ He was the lost man’s 
nephew, not his cousin—a slight difference.” Is this very humourous ? 
Yet with no better provocation than this “ O'Connor laughed at the 
humour of his wife, and she gave him smile for smile.” We plead 
guilty to utter inability to relish some stories that get considerable 
vogue here at home among the general novel-reading world; and 
this may partly account for our very moderate enthusiasm for ‘‘ Pére 
Monnier’s Ward,” which has decided merits withal. . 

4. ‘he same publishers have issued several other works of fiction, 
the one to which we can give the warmest welcome being “ The 
Prodigal’s Daughter and Other Tales” by Lelia Hardin Pugg. Every 
one of the four stories is very interesting and well written—shrewd 
studies of character, crisp conversation, humour and pathos, and 
plenty of well managed incident. We are inclined to rank Miss 
Hardin Bugg as the liveliest and best writer of fiction in the Catholic 
literary circles of America. Religion is not obtruded offensively in 
her stories, but a solid religious spirit pervades them all. 


334 The Irish Monthly 


6. Another of these novels is translated from the French by Miss 
Mary MacMahon— ‘The Romance of a Playwright,” by Vicomte Henri 
de Bornier. This writer has been very successful in his own country, 
and the present tale has considerable merit even as a translation; but 
we are surprised that Miss MacMahon has been satisfied with her 
version of hundreds of sentences, which remind us that they were 
originally French. In page 40 she speaks of ‘‘our triumphant and 
indemnified hero,” and in every page there are turns of thought and 
expression which ought to have been more skilfully naturalized in 
their new language. 


This and the other books received from Mesers. Benziger are very 
agreeably printed and produced. Two others are for children. ‘‘ The 
World Well Lost,” by Esther Robertson, does not seem to be either 
very pleasant or instructive, A much larger book is ‘‘ Pickle and 
Pepper,” by Miss Ellen Loraine Dorsey, whose ‘‘ Taming of Polly” 
has been quite sufficiently praised. The opening chapters of the 
present more childish book remind one of ‘‘ Helen’s Babies ;” but the 
story does not seem to improve as it advances, and we do not admire 
the witch parts as much as some of its readers probably will. This 
book also is brought out very attractively. 

6. I wish “May Meditations” by the Rev. Thomas Swift, 3.J,, 
had come into my hands in time to be announced in our May number, 
It would have helped some of our readers to make the past month a 
real ‘‘ Mois de Marie.” But this isa useful little book fur any month 
of the year. It costs sixpence, and may be procured from the 
Mannesa Press, Roehampton, London, 8.W., or from the Author, 
Ditton Hall, Widnes. The meditations are short, simple, sensible, 
pious and practical. Zzperto creds Roberto. With these “May 
Meditations” we may join a new ‘Manual of Instructions and 
Devotions for Children of Mary ” (London: Robert Washbourne, 18 
Paternoster Row). It is a particularly neat and complete handbook 
for an Enfant de Marie, and it will serve as a very convenient prayer- 
book and meditation-book for general use. It is produced with the 
care and finish which the Publisher bestows on every book that bears 
his imprint. 

7. We must welcome Zhe Mangalore Magazine, ove of the youngest 
of the innumerable College Magazines that have sprung up in 
all English-speaking countries, and perhaps in France, Germany, 
and other countries of Europe. The Mangalore Magazine, however, 
besides being the organ of St. Aloysius’ College, takes an interest in 
all that concerns Mangaloreans. Mr. E. B. Palmer’s history of 
Mangalore Harbour, for instance, is one that would be welcomed in 
a secular local journal. There is a very agreeable variety of prose 
and verse, the most interesting specimen of each being the late Father 
M. W. Shallo’s poem, “ Loyola,” and the introductory account of his 
too short career. He belonged to Clondalkin, Co. Dublin, and he 
died at Santa Clara College, San !rancisco, U.S.A., on the 27th of 
January, 1898, aged 45 years, R.1.P. God bless all the men and 
women who devote their lives to the hard work of teaching the young 
all over the world, from Tramore to Travancore, from Omagh to Omaha. 


_ 8. Notes on St. Paul: Corninthians, Galatians, Romans. By Joseph 
Rickaby, 8.J. (London: Burns and Oates). 





Notes on New Books. 305 


This is the 98th volume of the Quarterly Series which we never 
like to mention without a passing tribute of affectionate veneration 
and gratitude to the memory of its founder, the holy, gifted, learned, 
and laborious Father Henry James Coleridge, 8.J. Father Rickaby 
has filled this large and compact volume with solid matter, very 
briefly and clearly expressed, which the student of St. Paul will find 
most useful in conjunction with more voluminous commentaries older 
and less up to date. The terse English will be a relief to turn to 
occasionally from the Latin of Estius and A Lapide, especially in the 
grand old folio editions, so dignified but so cumbrous. 

9. Martolatary : New Phases of an Old Fallacy. By the Rev, Henry 
G. Ganss. (Ave Maria Press: Notre Dame, Indiana). 

Father Ganss takes the unusual course of printing in full the 
heretical sermon which he proceeds to refute sentence by sentence. 
He does this by almost exclusively Protestant testimonies, the only 
Catholics he cites (except a few times incidentally) being the Fathers 
of the early centuries. As the preacher he refutes belongs to 
Dickenson College, he indeed quotes very effectively at the beginning 
these words of its greatest alumnus, Roger Taney, Chief Justice of 
the United States—a position which he calls “the highest judicial 
tribunal in the world.” ‘ Most thankful am I that the reading, 
reflection, studies and experience of a long life have strengthened 
and confirmed my faith in the Catholic Church, which has never 
ceased to teach her children how they should live and how they 
should die.” This very vigorous and very original piece of controversy 
ought to do a great deal of good, especially in the United States. 


10. Zhe New Iretand Review (Fallon and Co.: Dublin) has recently 
unbent from its dignified, academic attitude and indulged in a bit of 
fiction. The April and May Numbers had each a story. ‘The 
Weston Scandal’’ was a lively and exceedingly well written sketch of 
the social foibles of a little country town, as pleasant as a chapter of 
Mrs. Gaskell’s ‘‘ Cranford’’ or of Mrs. Francis Blundell’s ‘‘ Frieze 
and Fustian.”” We wish the writer’s full name had been attached to this 
charming story. Equally successful in a much more difficult kind of 
literary art is ‘“‘'fhe Hound of Una” by Alice Furlong in the May 
Review. The quaint archaic style, which is admirably sustained, adds 
a curious zest to the pathos and vividness of this remarkable little tale.* 

11. St. Francis de Sales as a Preacher. By the Very Rev. Canon 
Mackey, 0.8.B. (London: Turns and Oates). 

Canon Mackay has long devoted himself to the service of the 
Saint-Bishop of Geneva. He is a specialist about everything that 
concerns the Saint’s life and character. The present treatise (for such 
it is) is made up of three essays contributed to the Dublin Review, and 
treating of the most recent discoveries on the subject, of the Saint’s 
training and development as a preacher, his own theory of sacred 
eloquence, and his influence in restoring the practice of it to purity and 
simplicity. All these subjects are discussed with great learningandcare. 


* We take the opportunity of announcing that a volume of Miss Alice 
Farlong’s poems, price half-a-crown, will shortly be published by Mr. Elkin 
Mathew, Vigo Street, London, W. We shall be glad to take charge of the 
subscriptions of those who may wish to show beforehand their interest in a work 
pnich we are sure will possess a high degree of literary merit, poetry of the pures 

na.— ) . r. . M., 


336 The Irish Monthly. 


12, Notex on the Baptistery Chapel of St. John the Baptist, Church of 
St. Ignatius Loyola, New York. By John Prendergast, Priest of the 
Society of Jesus. (New York: The Meany Printing Company). 

This is quite a remarkable book, much more literary and artistic 
than the casual reader could expect. It is very much more than a 
minute description, which it is, of the Baptistery of the Jesuit Church 
in New York. Every part of it indeed is set before us by excellent 
illustrations and vivid pen-pictures; but there is also a very original 
and effective exposition of the Catholic doctrines involved—Our Lady’s 
suppliant omnipotence, the nature and efficacy of prayer, the 
sacramental system, etc. Saint John the Baptist naturally plays a 
considerable part in this attractive combination of theological and 
literary skill. 

18. From the Press of the American Messenger of the Sacred Heart 
have issued the thirty-first edition of the ‘‘ Handbook of the 
Apostleship of Prayer,” and the fifth edition of ‘‘ League Devotions 
and Choral Service for the Apostleship of Prayer.” This last book is 
avery beautiful manual, especially of eucharistic devotions. The last 
seventy pages contain a rich collection of hymus, many of them new. 

14. One of the most interesting of the many articles which Mr. 
Wilfred Ward's admirable *‘ Life of Cardinal Wiseman” has called 
forth is the sketch contributed by Mr. W. H. Archer to the Austral 
Light of Melbourne. Mr. Archer was received into the Church by 
Dr Wiseman more than fifty years ago. His reminiscences give one 
a very amiable idea of that great man. 

The latest publications of the Catholic Truth Society are Mr. 
James Britten’s exposure of two miserable apostates who are not 
likely to trouble Dublin or Cavan, and a translation of Cardinal 
Perraud’s two fine discourses on “ The Catholic Church of England, 
her Glories, Trials, and Hopes,” for which our Holy Father Leo XIII. 
has thanked and blessed him. 

15. Miss Erin. By M. E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell). 
(London: Methuen and Co). 

This the latest of Mrs. Blundell’s delightful novels— the latest for 
the present, for a story of hers is now drawing to an end ina London 
magazine which will be found, we think, when it reappears as a 
volume on its own account, to be perhaps the liveliest and most 
winning of all her creations, How lively and how winning they are, 
and how numerous already! ‘Ina North Country Village,” ‘‘ The 
Story of Dan,” “A Daughter of the Soil,” ‘' Frieze and Fustian,” 
“Among the Untrodden Ways,” “ Whither?’ ‘“‘Maime o’ the 
Corner,” and now “ Miss Erin.” All these may safely be added to the 
most carefully guarded library, and ought certainly to be mentioned 
emphatically in any continuation of those articles an ‘‘ Harmless 
Novels’ which have at long intervals appeared in our pages. But 
“ Miss Erin” is very much more than a merely harmless novel. It 
is a beautiful tale, full of generous feeling. The writers five 
descriptive faculty is kept well in check. She has a wonderful knack 
of making her men and women talk pleasantly and naturally. Like 
most of her books, the scene changes from Ireland to England; and even 
in Belgium she shows herself quite at home. Would that all coutem- 
“rary fiction were as wholesome reading as this bright and brilliant 

‘v, which the publishers have brought out in a very readable form. 


JULY, 1808. 


THROUGH THE DARK NIGHT. 
or, 


THIRTY YEARS AGO. 





CHarTrer XLY. 


“AFTER LONG GRIEF AND PAIN.” 


YEAR after year flowed away over the edge of time; summers 

came and went; the grass was long grown on the grave of 
Lizzie Lynch’s grandmother, and a look of patient pain had 
deepened about the lips of Ethna Talbot. She had grown to be 
a grave and gentle woman, whose happiness seemed to be not of 
this world; exact in the performance of her duties, self-denying, 
and thoughtful for others. There was no account of Vincent ; 
everyone believed him to be dead, but she still clung to the hope 
that he would return to her—a hope that was slowly dying out. 
A knock at the door at an unusual hour, hurrying footsteps, a 
clamour of veices, used to make her heart leap in her bosom 
with a sudden wild hope that died almost at its birth, leaving her 
with eyes that could not see for tears. But she struggled with 
her momentary feeling of despair, and bravely took up her burden 
once more. 

Nell O’Malley came down every Autumn for vacation, their 
common grief had drawn them close together, and the happiest 
part of the year was that in which they could speak to each other 
of those for whom they watched and waited. Juizzie Lynch wae 


Vou. xxvx. No 301 25 


338 The Irish Monthly 


taken by the Madam as parlour-maid, and often sat at a little 
distance with her needlework, when Nell and Ethna, resting on 
the old seat outside the door, talked of the past, present, and 
future. 

Nell had letters regularly from Father Garrett. lle was 
settled in the United States to his entire satisfaction, and bad a 
large field for his apostolic labours; he was building a church, 
and spoke with enthusiasm of the progress his people were making 
in pure and holy ways. He wanted Nell to go out to him, he 
could offer her a comfortable home; still he permitted her to do 
as she thought best, for he sympathised with the feelings that 
kept her as near as was possible to her imprisoned lover. 

Though each made the best of her life, the months and years 
were long and lonely to the three watchers who yearned for the 
tender clasp of beloved hands, and the sound of familiar voices 
that made the music of their hearts. 

Nora was gone to school, the Madam’s pretty brown hair had 
changed to silver, but she was still an active housekeeper, and by 
good management, economy, and Ethna’s efficient assistance, had 
contrived to pay all debts incurred by what she considered her 
daughter’s thoughtlessness. 

Mr. Talbot was bent and grey, but continued to work indefa- 
tigably at his profession, and to make money as of old. Hoe was 
greatly attached to his daughter-in-law, who constantly visited 
him, and gave him all the time she could spare from her home 
duties. He, too, cherished the hopes of his son’s return. 

é“ Who knows yet, my dear P” he would say, “who knows 
yet? God is very good, and it is just what Vincent would do, 
he hated writing letters, his turning up any day wouldn’t surprise 
me, not in the least.” 

But three, four, and five years passed slowly away, and still 
no prodigal returned to partake of the fatted calf. Ethna grew 
pale and thin, and a look of unspeakable sadness haunted her 
dark eyes, but she made no cemplaint, and, except to Nell 
O’Malley, spoke little of her feelings. 

It was a lovely evening in the middle of autumn, She and 
Nell sat outside the door watching the harvest moon slowly 
_ scaling the blue heights of heaven. 

‘Five years and five months,” said Ethna. ‘They have 
brought you nearer to your lover, Nell; have they brought me 


Through the Dark Night. 339 


nearer to my husband ?” 

Nell sighed and made no reply. 

“You are happy,” continued Ethna; ‘‘ you have the certainty 
of being together sometime, but I—oh, it is miserable, and I 
cannot think he is dead. I cannot give up the hope of seeing 
him again, if it were only as Evangeline met Gabriel; but the 
will of God be done.” 

“od will do what is best for us all,” said Nell, “and I 
always hope for the best. How terrible, how everlasting, those 
five years looked when we stood at the beginning of them. Now 
they are past, and they were not so unendurable as we thought. 
A cross we carry willingly loses half its weight. Your crown of 
happiness will come, please God.” 

é“ Never to see him, never to tell him how much I loved him. 
It would be a hard trial, Nell, and he did not think I cared for 
him. I did not know how completely he had woven himself 
about my heart until I had lost him. I think now was there 
anyone ever like him, so unselfish and warm. Do you remember 
the winning smile he had, and the joyous laughter, my poor 
boy P” 

é“ They say the strongest affection is where love rushes in after 
friendship,” said Nell; “go you should love each other dearly. 
Indeed, there were not many like him. I remember the first day 
I saw him here— how handsome I thought him. And he was 
always so kind to me when I met him out. May God guard 
him wherever he is !” 

“ Our Novena to our Lady of Perpetual Succour will be ended 
to-morrow,”’ answered Ethna. “I have great faith that her 
Divine Son will hear her on our behalf, and send us news of him. 
Ah, Nell, if I got a letter from him in the morning !” 

é“ Kthna, dear,” said the Madam, from the open window, 
“will you come in and make the tea? I want to speak to Paddy 
Daly.” 

Kthna went into the parlour. Lizzie Lynch brought in the 
kettle, and the tea was made and covered with a cosy. 

“ Bring in the cake when it is done, Lizzie,” she said, “ but 
don’t hurry until mother is ready, and I will finish this letter for 
to-morrow’s post.” 

She sat down to a small writing-table and took up her pen. 
She wrote rapidly for some time until she heard the door leading 


340 The Irish Monthly. 


from the avenue into the pleasure-ground open, and footsteps 
crushing the gravel. She paused and sighed, thinking in a vague 
way of the many times the opening of that door had made her 
heart beat with sudden violence. 

She was bending over her letter again when a smothered 
exclamation from Nell caught her ear. 

“ What is the matter, Nell ?” she called out, as she heard 
steps come into the hall. There was no reply. She stood up, 
and, turning, towards the door, beheld standing there a bronzed 
and bearded man. 

She reached out her arms; her voice died away; her limbs 
grew weak; but before she could fall she was caught to her 
husband’s breast. In speechless joy they clung to each other; 
she clasped her arms with passionate love about his neck ; she 
recovered her voice and called him by a thousand endearing names; 
she held his hands to her breast and lips; she gazed at him with 
unutterable rapture. 

““My wife, my darling! are you so glad to have me back P” 
he said, his hot tears falling on her upturned face. 

é I love you,” she oried, “I love you, Vincent, my husband, 
I love you!” 

In a moment there was a wild tumult inside and outside the 
house. Weeping with joy, the Madam embraced her son-in-law. 
Old Mr. Talbot made his appearance; he had come with his son, 
and had waited fora few minutes, until the meeting between 
husband and wife was accomplished. 

Ethna released her husband for a moment to cling to her 
father-in-law, who kissed and blessed her with a voice broken 
with emotion. The servants lifted up their voices and wept in 
the passages; the news flew like wild-fire over the land; the 
workmen crowded into the kitchen; the neighbours gathered into 
the yard and out-offices; the Taylors arrived from Beltard; and 
it gave the Madam, Nell, and Lizzie Lynch no inconsiderable 
amount of work to provide a feast worthy of the occasion for all 
those who came to rejoice with them. 

Kthns sat beside her husband, clasping his hand in both hers, 
thinking of nothing, or seeing nothing but the beloved face that 
had taken away and had brought back the light and warmth into 
her life. 

It was an evening of inexpressible happiness. More like 





Through the Dark Night. 341 


lovers than ever they had been, the husband and wife looked at 
each other as if every moment a strange new beauty appeared in 
each beloved face. Vincent’s warm nature reeponded at once to 
Ethna’s unexpected demonstrations, and all the painful past— 
their half-hearted marriage, their separation—seemed but a dark 
background, intensifying the vivid joy of the present. The 
traveller told of all his adventures by “flood and field ”—of 
dangers, disappointments, and ultimate success. ‘I would never 
return,” he said, “until I had as much as would pay my debts.” 

‘You have no debts to pay, my boy,” answered his father. 
é The Madam and I saw to that, and the business is as good as 
ever it was.” 

‘Well, with God's help, III never be a trouble to either of 
you again,” said Vincent. ‘‘ I have cown my wild oats.” 

He had written a few times, he said, and had given the letters to 
chance messengers to post, which would account for their never 
having arrived. 

é A fellow does not care to write when he has nothing pleasant 
to tell,” said he. “ And I thought you would not mind much if I 
never wrote, Eth,” he added in a whisper. 

é“ Oh, just like you,” replied his father, “just like you. You 
never had much brains—never. Just what I thought it likely 
you would do.” 

é“ Well, my dear gir, a cheque for four or five thousand pounds 
is a good certificate for a man to have to show,” said Mr. Taylor, 
laughing. “ It takes some brains to put it together.” 

“Tut—tut,” replied the old gentleman, with one of his 
repressed smiles. “ How do we know how the fellow got it?” 

It is a bitter thing to look at happiness through other 
people’s eyes. Nell rejoiced with her whole heart at the 
wanderer’s return, and the bright change in her friend’s life; 
rejoiced as much as if the change had been a personal one; but 
Vincent there, exultant, bright, and at liberty, brought her lover 
more vividly before her—he who was wearing out his youth, sad 
and solitary, within the walls of a prison. 

Nevertheless, she laid the cloth for supper most accurately, 
and was the Madam’s right hand. 

“ Never mind, Nell,” said Vincent, putting his arms about her 
shoulders with that familiar affection born of a common joy or 
sorrow, “it will be your turn next; we will have them out,” he 





342 The Irish Monthly. 


continued with his old, earnest enthusiasm ; ‘‘ we will petition. I 
will work heaven and earth; they are punished enough now, and 
they might as well release them.” 

é“ You are about right there,” said Mr. Taylor; ““it is all over 
now, and the Government would act wisely in being merciful.” 

“T will never rest till I work it,” answered Vincent. “I 
never can sit down tranquilly and enjoy myself while Louis 
Sarsfield and Corney are shut up. Heavens, what a life it must 
must be! How lucky it was I got off without arousing more than 
vague suspicion. I can put on a most virtuous appearance now, 
and fight their battle for them. Ah, what fools we were. Don 
Quixotes ready to do battle with any amount of wind-mills.”’ 


CuHapTer XLVI. 


“NO MORE PARTING.” 


Vincent Talbot carried out his intentions about appealing to 
the mercy of the Government on behalf of the Fenian prisoners. 
It was a subject that awoke the sympathies of all classes, and 
many responded to his call. Day and night he and his fellow- 
labourers worked to advance their cause, seeking interest, 
petitioning and appealing with an insistance that would not be 
denied. Nell went through all the agonies of an awakened hope, 
watching the struggle that was to her like one between life and 
death. 

“Shorten his imprisonment, oh, Lord God,” she would cry, 
prostrate in prayer; “ not for my own happiness do I ask it, but 
for his. Keep us apart if Thou wilt, but give him liberty.” - 

Vincent and Ethna had come up to Dublin; after about a 
year's agitation a crisis had arrived, and the agitators were in 
daily expectation of an answer from the higher powers. Nell, 
who was in the same position with the Madam’s friends, was © 
spending the evening with Ethna. They were talking earnestly 
over possibilities. 

“Tam not half so strong as I was,” said Nell. ‘“ My heart is 
torn between hope and fear, but God will give me strength again 
if I bedisappointed. When I think of him though, living through 
the awful solitude of the long, lonely years, it kills me, it kills 
me.” 





Through the Dark Night. 3438 


She laid her head upon her arms on the table before her. 

A violent knock came to the hall-door. Vincent burst in. 

é“ Hurrah !” he cried, springing upstairs three steps at a time. 
‘‘Hurrah! hurrah! Nell, Ethna, they are free, they are free. 
The news has come that ten prisoners are released, Louis and 
and Corney among them.” 

Nell fell insensible into his arms. 

Vincent went over to England to see to the necessities of his 
friends, who he said “were not likely to be very flush of cash 
coming out of prison.” 

The sea was laughing in the rosy light of the setting sun. 
The pier at Kingstown was crowded with gay promenaders. The 
music of the band stole on the ears, mingled with the low wash 
of the waves, the murmur of voices, and pleasant laughter. The 
steam-boat hove into sight, and came along puffing and blowing 
like some preadamite monster of the deep. There was the usual 
amount of shouting and running to and fro. The promenaders 
stopped a moment to see who were the arrivals. 

Ethna Talbot and Nell O’Malley stood close to the boat—the 
former with a face radiant with delight—the latter white and 
trembling. 

“There he is,” exclaimed Ethna, breathlessly. 

A pale, bearded man, with many grey hairs showing in his 
dark locks, stepped upon the pier, and looked eagerly around. He 
saw them as they pressed forward; his lips quivered; he spoke 
no word, but took Nell’s hand, drew it within his arm, holding it 
tightly clasped, and reached out his other hand to Kthna. Nell 
laid her face against her lover.. 

“é What is delaying Vincent and Corney ?”’ said Ethna, trying 
to speak as though the meeting was an ordinary one. ““ Oh, here 
they are.” 

Clinging to Vincent’s arm, Corney stood before them, a wreck 
of the fine stalwart fellow they remembered, emaciated and 
haggard, with a painful, yearning expression in the honest blue 
eyes that seemed unnaturally large in the worn face. 

“ P11 be all right, ma’am,”’ he answered, with a faint smile, 
to Ethna’s inquiries. ‘I feel better already. I was better the 
moment I saw Mr. Vincent, Only for Mr. Louis I'd be dead, 


Miss Nell. Oh! thanks be to God, we are in the old land once 
more,” 





344 The Irish Monthly. 


“Here, look alive, Sarsfield,’? said Vincent. ‘Steer the 
women, and let us get home. Take your time, Corney, old 
fellow. We have lots of time for the next train.” 

In a few days there was a quiet wedding at St. Kevin’s 
Church. Vincent gave away the bride. Nell’s pupils were her 
bridesmaids. And after the breakfast, which was Ethna’s care, 
the wedded lovers proceeded to Glendalough. They were to 
come to Mona afterwards, before departing for America. 

“JT cannot realise it, Louis,” said Nell, as they sat in the 
train, her brown eyes full of tears; “it all seems like a dream from 
which I might awake into the dark night again.” 

é“ My faithful love,” he answered, “the night is past—the 
bright dawn has broken out of heaven.” 


* & & 


Vincent called in a doctor to see Corney O’Brien. He 
examined him carefully. 

“ A hopeless case,” he said, when they left the room, “ His 
constitution is worn out. He may live on for some time, but he 
will never recover.” 

é The prison killed him,”’ answered Vincent. ‘‘ It would have 
been more merciful if they had hanged him at once. Only a 
constitution of iron would stand what they suffered.” 

é That poor fellow is not the better of it, at all events,” said the 
doctor. ‘Give him plenty of nourishment, and take him to the 
country as soon as possible.” 

The following week the Talbots and Corney O’Brien returned 
to Beltard. Ethna was now mistress of her father-in-law’s house, 
and she insisted on Corney’s remaining under her care for some 
time, until he got a little stronger. She had written to Lizzie 
Lynch to prepare her for the change in her lover, with orders to 
have everything arranged for his comfort. The girl waited at 
the terminus, Joy and fear possessing her alternately. But when 
she saw the strong, fair-haired love of her youth emerge from the 
carriage a wan and feeble man, she burst into an agony of tears. 

“ Hold your tongue, you fool,” said Corney, as he kissed her 
wet face, his own tears falling on it. “Is it crying for my coming 
back you are? Sure ’tis glad you ought to be that I’m alive at 
all.” 


“ Oh, Oorney, Corney !” sobbbed the girl. 





Through the Dark Niyht. 345 


é What's this crying for?” said Vincent, coming up. 
‘“‘ Laughing you ought to be, girl. Go now and make yourself 
useful while Corney gets on the car. Are you ready, Ethna ?”’ 

For a few days Corney seemed to rally considerably ; but 
when the excitement consequent on seeing and talking to old 
friengs, was abated, he relapsed into his old, languid condition. 

‘‘T think if I was at home,” he said, “‘ I might get stronger. This 
is a fine healthy place I know, but I was used to the mountains, 
Mr. Vincent.” 

“Tf I might presumd to offer an opinion on the subject in 
question,” said Mr. Lynch, who clung to the boy he reared with 
unfailing affection, “I wouldadvisethat heshould test therestorative 
properties of his native air. As he very properly remarks, he has 
been acoustomed to reside in elevated regions, and under the 
mercy of Providence, who can tell but the salubrious atmosphere 
of his childhood may restore his exhausted energies ? "Tis all 
debility, consequent on confinement and privation—mere 
debility.” 

Corney was taken out to his old home; Lizzie Lynch accom- 
panied him. Ethna saw that he was provided with everything 
that he could possibly require, and the Madam was near to prepare 
little delicacies and minister to his daily wants. But the invalid 
was beyond all human aid, and slowly, day by day, he drifted 
farther out on that “unreturning tide” that bears all upon its 
mysterious bosom to the everlasting haven. He recognised him- 
self whither he wastending. It gave him no personal regret, but 
he looked at the face bending over him with untiring devotion 
and closed his eyes with a look of pain. 

“Lily, my girl,” he said, one evening, “ you are not to be 
fretting for me when [am gone. This life is but a little thing. 
I see it now, sweetheart, for the light is near. “Tisn’t worth 
while to take up anything, we lay it down sosoon. Sosoon! but 
not too soon. Any time the Lord wills, I’m satisfied, Lily, only 
for you, my poor girl.” 

é“ Don't think of me, Corney, my heart,” she answered. 
“Sure, I give everything into the hands of the Lord and His 
Blessed Mother. Think of nothing but what the priest told you, 
asthore machree, of the glory and the happiness that’s before you. 
I won’t be long after you, pulse of my heart. The time won’t be 
long passing, and then no more trouble—no more parting.” 


346 The Irish Monthly. 


‘* No more trouble,” he repeated, dreamily ; “ no more parting, 
nor prisons, nor going astray. Will Father Garrett, call in P” he 
continued, wandering back into the past. “TI saw him passing 
awhile ago. Mr. Vincent is coming out to-night. I can lay my 
finger on four covies. Where’s the harm, Lily? I’m out of Bill’s 
power; why shouldn't I go out? Ah, God! I never meant to 
kill him—never, never; where is he now—where? I can’t wipe 
this red stain off my hand, Lily—look at it. You'll be true to 
me, my girl—see, here’s the ring; cheap Jack is a deep one. 
Sure, we would die for old Ireland, every one of us. Liberty for 
ever, Mr. Louis. I wonder what are they doing at home, sir, on 
the green old hills. They won't forget us; but ’tis bard lines— 
ugh! the water is rotten. Oh, God! will we ever see the Mona 
mountainside again? There the sun shines and the larks sing— 
sing clear like my sweetheart. Yes, I’m satisfied to go; no more 
pain nor sin, but strength and peace. The Lord is good and 
great.” 

So he continued for many nights giving expression to his 
broken memories of the past until the end came, when, prepared 
and collected, he passed quietly away, and Lizzie Lynch closed 
his lips and drew the lids over the eyes from which the light had 
gone out for ever. 


* * * 


Five years have passed since poor Corney’s death. It is a 
glorious evening in one of the luxuriant valleys of New England. 
A brawling streamlet winds in and out among tall, overhanging 
trees that dip their pendant arms in the bright waters, smiling 
meadowlands and corn-fields lie around, a long, low dwelling- 
house covered with vine, vesteria, and roses stands among 
laburnum and lilac trees, with a great orchard at the rear. At 
the door is a happy, dark-eyed little matron, clapping her hands 
at a crowing, brown-eyed baby, whom a tall, noble-looking man 
is tossing in hisarms. In the distance a priest is walking up and 
down reading his office. He lifts his hat as the crimson sun sinks 
below the horizon, and remains for a few moments absorbed in 
prayer; then takes the small hand of a little child who walked 
beside him, and, approaching the house, calls aloud : 

“ What about supper, Nell? Little Ethna and I smell some- 
thing good,” 





The Liffey Unsung. 347 


It is Sunday afternoon at Mona. Ethna Talbot is seated 
outside the door with her infant in her arms. Vincent is lying 
at full length on the grass, with two children tumbling over him, 
A couple of dogs are stretched beside him, lazily wagging their 
tails. Mr. Talbot and Mr. Taylor are sitting together on the 
old seat. Mrs. Taylor and the Madam are seated at the open 
window. 

é To the rescue, Nora—to the rescue !” called out Vincent, as 
a slight, pretty girl made her appearance. ‘‘I am being goaded 
to madness. Those children have not the slightest respect for the 
author of their being, and their mother only encourages them.” 

“ Leave him alone, Nora,” said Ethna; “he would set any 
child on earth out of its mind, he makes such an uproar.” 

“ My only friend on earth is Lizzie Lynch,” he answered 
plaintively. ‘Come, young one, shout for ’izzie, izzie. Tell her 
to hurry home.”’ 

In the quiet churchyard on the slope of the sunny hill Lizzie 
Lynch kneels by Corney O’Brien’s grave and prays for his eternal 
rest, 

AtTmg O’Brien. 


THE END. 


THE LIFFEY UNSUNG.* 


OINCE first the trick of rhyme I tried, 
I’ve sung full many a river. 
Whene’er I see bright waters glide, 
I bless the Almighty Giver 
Who bade them flow ; and long ago 
(What's this aetatem supplet ?) 
In boyish days I to their praise 
Would cobble many a couplet. 


* Allusion is made to certain sets of verses in Tor Intsh MoNTHLY, addressed 
to the Yarra Yarra, the Dodder, and the Allo, in which the form of Wordsworth’s 
Yarrow poems is imitated by rhyming the name of each river at the end of every 
stanza. The Liffey has beer left unsung, it seems, because ita name does not 
lend iteelf to this device. 


348 


The Irish Monthly. 


The Yarra through far Melbourne flows, 
Through Donnybrook the Dodder— 
These, far apart, have touched my heart, 

And (what is even odder) 
A Munster river quite unknown, 
And one that rhymes with ‘ polka,” 
Dear to my wayward Muse have grown— 
The Allo and the Tolka. 


The dearest last of all I sang— 
Glanrye that flows through Newry. 
The spot where first my life-stream sprang 
Such tribute claimed de jure. 
Yet on its banks I do not dwell; 
Not far but long I’ve wandered, 
How many years I dare not tell— 
Please God, not wholly squandered. 


My home is where the Liffey strays 
Through Erin’s queenly city— 

Not here, as in its rural days, 
Pellucid, pure, and pretty. 

But, ere at last its windings end 
In yon salt tide before it, 

Grattan, ©’Connell, Butt extend 
Their ample arches o’er it. 


What memories of the bygone cling 
Where Liffey’s wavelets glisten ! 

What ballads all its stream might sing, 
Were we but skilled to listen ! 

Then, why no rhyme through all this time ? 
Ill tell you in a jiffey : 

That low word is the only rhyme 
That pairs with Anna Liffey. 





( 349 ) 


GLIMPSES IN THE WEST. 
II. 


é“ What if the spectators who last summer gazed with pride on 
the nokle port of Plymouth, its vast breakwater spanning the 
Sound, its arsenals and docks, its two estuaries filled with gallant 
ships ; what if, by some magic turn, the nineteenth century, and 
all the magnificence of its wealth and science, had vanished—as 
it may vanish hereafter—and they found themselves thrown back 
three hundred years into the pleasant summer days of 1588 ?”” 

These words of Kingsley—with which he opens his description 
of the Armada fight, in Westward Ho !—formulate the question 
which everyone asks of himself as he stands for the first time on 
the Plymouth Hoe, and, gazing outward over the Sound with its 
myriad shipping, looks westward and to the south on the dim 
expanse of sea line beyond Rame head, and remembers it was 
over that verge beyond the headland the first mast of Spain’s 
Armada rose to the straining sight of Hawkins and of Drake as 
they stood and watched on this same spot three hundred years 
ago. And, so far as the general features of the scene concern 
him, he need change nothing in his imagination: Mount 
Edgeocumbe rises in its woodland wealth of varied beauty much 
the same as it must have greeted the eyes of the Spanish Don to 
whom it was allotted as reward of valour when, the victory won 
and England conquered, the day of reckoning should be at hand : 
even that little island between it and the foreshore possessed its 
battery just raised by the man whose name it bears to-day. The 
sea, headlands, and sky are the same as they were three centuries 
ago: nature’s witnesses do not change their favour much; but 
the years have brought their changes in other things, and the 
gusty summer dawn of that day of which Kingsley wrote saw the 
birth of a new epoch in the world’s history of which we, as yet, 
have not seen the close. The little harbour to our left—the 
Cattewater—thronged to-day with the smacks of fishermen and a 
few merchant vessels, on that day held the ships which on the 
morrow were to begin “ the greatest sea fight the world has ever 
seen.” There are a few sailing coasters in the harbour to-day of 





350 The Irish Monthly. 


greater displacement and better sea-going qualities than even the 
the little Revenge herself, the vice-admiral’s own pet craft; there 
are three training-brigs anchored by Drake's [sland—relics of the 
days of Nelson and of Howe, whose armament even now would have 
vanquished the whole Spanish tleet-—granting the men of Drake 
and Hawkins on board—but, “ there's the rub:” for it was the 
men who won the victories in those old days; and the world will 
yet discover, should she put the matter to the test, that it will be 
with the men who man those floating engines of death the victory 
will lie again, and, if th. wight of England is once more to be 
tested on the sea in a new ormageddon, it will be fought out here 
before our doors as it was three hundred years ago. Whether the 
fight be one of oak, culverin, and round-shot—or steel armour- 
platings, explosive shells, and torpedoes, the victory will go to the 
same virtues in fighting which drove the first three Plymouth 
ships to windward of the Armeda crescent, and, broadside after 
broadside, hulled the monster galleons of Spain. And yet, in 
those far-off days, and later in the time of Nelson, it would seem 
that the individual had greater chance of winuing glory than he 
has to-day. He fought with the knowledge that the least likely 
thing to happen him was the sinking of his ship beneath his feet 
—unless a stray spark found its way into the powder magazine— 
and, until the bullet or roundshot destined for him found its 
billet, there was the good ding-dong fight to work shoulder to 
shoulder with his comrade, until his gun grew tvo hot to load 
again, or the grappling irons were laid aboard; with his cutlass 
or his pike he fought in the eye of ull whose praise he cared for ; 
and the end of victory was seldom a sinking enemy, but a good 
prize to board and a treasure to share. You have only to visit one 
of the first-class battleships now lying in the Hamoaze to see how 
allthis is changed—the individual has become but more electric 
button to be pressed in a hideous engine of death—and it were 
well, in the face of present conditions, if those who are ready 
enough to rush their country into a war at sea, would strive to 
realise the anguish of heroism required of the individual seaman 
of to-day who, in the thick of battle—with no knowledge of the ebb 
or flow of fortune in the fight—works at his allotted task deep 
down in the darkness and in the shadow of death. Think of the 
feelings of an individual stoker for instance, in the fierce heat of 
the furnace he feeds, who, through minutes that seem as hours, 





Glimpses in the West. 351 


begrimed with coal and sweat, gasping for breath in the used-up 
atmosphere (for the decks above are cleared for action and the 
hatchways are battened down) must still toil on at his shovel, whilst 
above him the fight is raging fierce and fell; he feels each 
concussion reel through the ship with the firing of the barbeitte 
guns; far above him is the shrieking of the machine guns, and 
the rattling hail of metal with which the enemy replies, whilst 
ever and anon over head he can hear the whirlwind rush of a 
Palliser shell as it perforates his ship’s armour and explodes in 
their midst. And then in the midst of this confused horror of 
sound comes the clear persistent ringing of an electric bell some- 
where up in the darkness, and he knows that for him and for 
those with him the moment is come—a message is travelling 
down the tube—for them it oan only be one of two things: 
‘prepare to ram “—-or, ‘“‘ship sinking, every man for himself.” 
Whichever it be he is reduced to practically one action down 
there—io /ie down, in the one case to save himself in the horrible 
impact, in the other to die as a rat in a hole; no use his rushing 
upwards towards the freedom of the decks he is hopelessly screwed 
down—the ship will be fathoms under long before he can be freed. 
is there less courage or more, think you, required of the men who 
fight to-day (for, even as I write, these horrors are let loose amid a 
tropic sea) than was required of those who fought in the old days ? 

You cannot shirk these problems here in Plymouth, however 
unpleasant their contemplation may be, the contrast between the 
conditions in the past and in the present are forever in front of 
you; and it only needs that you shall pass up the Hamoaze along 
the line of docks whence comes the clamour of shipbuilding, and 
amid the fleet of grim battle-ships lying at anchor “out of 
commission,” because ten years have put them “ out of date ” as 
effective engines of destruction, to realise, though but dimly, 
what naval warfare must be amongst those who are “ up to date.” 
For in truth it is only now asI write the nations may come to any 
realisation of what a hard fought naval engagement will mean. 
And, as things go at present, you know that year by year the 
struggle will thicken around this very spot as it did of old. The 
nations among themselves against us, and we against them, until 
the spark falls somewhere to set the tinder a-blaze, and then once 
more for the men of Howard, Drake, Hawkins, and of Nelson. 
But the Hamoaze is past, and you have entered the Tamar: the 


352 The Irish Monthly. 


nineteenth century and its problems are left behind, nay, even the 
sixteenth century is forgotten, and, without warning, you drift on 
the inflowing tide into the land of Arcady. 

I doubt if in the whole world there exists twenty miles of 
scenery to equal this of the Tamar, in its combined loveliness of 
domestic peace, and grandeur of composition in the oliff formation 
and wooded beauty of its winding valleys. It is not as splendid 
as the Dart in the width of its tidal stream—but it winds amid a 
lovelier land, and every bend opens up some new and more 
entrancing picture of sylvan beauty. Just now in these early 
days of spring the orchards of apple, pear, and cherry trees 
surrounding the cottages which nestle on its lower banks are 
ablaze with the pink and white of their blossoming, for, if the 
Scillies are the land of flowers, this is the valley of fruits, where 
the apples mellow into Autumn for the cider-press and the straw- 
berry grows large and luscious in June, and may be had cheap, 
with “ Devon’s clouted cream ” and home-made bread and fragrant 
tea in the green arboursof many acottage garden by the Tamar’s 
banks. To leave the noise and clamour of a busy modern town, 
and drift up thither in a boat on the sleepy tide on a June day— 
to wander among the fruit gardens and orchards or along the 
deep lanes, and, when tired, to sit looking out on the stream, and in 
the old world atmosphere of cottage orofts and flowers made 
murmurous by the bees, to eat the fresh picked fruit and cream, is 
to bring back to the wearied palate the lost flavours of the days of 
Arcadia, or to feel the languor and delight that must have taken 
the wanderers of Odysseus in the lotus eating land. One view is 
almost enough for you here—though beyond stands Pentillie 
Castle—the most wonderfully situated in England—high on the 
wooded clifis of the Cornish shore; and farther still are 
the Morwell rocks—grim pinnacles of stone thrust upward 
through the wooded hillside, or the old world village of Calstock, 
with its forlorn wharves and relics of a dead sea commerce twenty 
miles inland from the sea. The excursion steamers will carry you 
thus far on the days when the tide serves; but I fear I am 
churlish in these things, and cannot speak with true democratic 
feelings of the manner in which the English holiday-maker 
disports himself. Some day perhaps cheap steamer trips will 
desecrate Killarney, and the steamer’s whistle will wake the 
echoes of the Hagle’s Nest where Tennyson wrote his Bugle Song ; 





Glimpses in the West. 353 


but I hope these things may not come in my time, for like the 
Northern Farmer “ I could’nt abear to see it.” Nevertheless, forty 
miles in a comfortable steamer, and done within five hours, 
including wait at Calstock for tea, and the fare eighteenpence, is 
not to be sneered at by anyone, no matter how conservative he may 
be in these matters; and in early Spring or later Autumn, when 
the woodlands are at their best, and the boats are not crowded, no 
lovelier day’s outing can be had. In the year’s decline especially 
this is true, for as we leave Calstock for home, the sunset is flung 
across the valley, and lights the cliffs and dying glory of the 
fading trees on the eastern shore with crimson and gold; and so 
the twilight falls as the valley widens to the sea; and then, over 
the last low range of the Dartmoor hills, is the rising fire of the 
September moon. 

A man might write a whole book on Dartmoor and yet say 
nothing—nothing at least which can convey theillimitable loneliness 
and desolation that hangs above this place of tombs, the grave- 
yard of a forgotten race, the men of the Stone Age. Even in 
Maremma or on the plains of Babylon we are in the presence of 
relics of a civilisation which we can understand ; but here we are 
face to face with evidences of a past, the distance of which is so 
great that to strive to realise it is to make it too modern for truth. 
The greatest imaginative writer since Defoe has tried it and failed." 
From the thousand fragments of their domestic life scattered over 
Dartmoor we may guess at some facts. They lived in colonies of 
é hut circles,’ each cluster of ciroular huts—to any of which that 
of an Esquimaux would be a palace—was surrounded by a stone 
wall, with an opening always facing south. Each hut had it’s 
hearthstone for fire, as can be seen, charred and blackened ; they 
had a clay pot, but it would not stand fire for cooking ; yet they 
knew the value of hot water, since they boiled it in this pot by 
dropping into it round granite stones, heated in the fire. For 
weapons they had flint axe heads and spear heads, and to obtain 
these they went far from Dartmoor. That is all we know of them. 
Yet one more glimmer of light comes to us. Elsewhere bones 
have been found in similar hut circles with spirited outline 
drawings cut into them with the hard flint of the animals they 
knew and warred against: and the Mastodon, the Sabre-toothed 
Tiger, the Elk, and the Aurochs are pictured among them! When 


* Mr. H. G. Wells. 
Vor. xxvi. No. 301. 26 


354 The Irish Monthly. 


we pause and think that these men were a civilised product of a 
previous race far more primitive, knowing nothing of stone 
weapons, and only possibly acquainted with fire, the mind reels. 
To return to the Dartmoor Hut-circles. Between Prince Town 
and Tavistock there is a large cluster of these on a south- 
ward facing hill side, and at the foot of the hill, on a long tract 
of green sward, isa well preserved avenue of “ processional stones ” 
ending in a cromlech, or “ Druidical circle,” so called. It is mere 
theory which connects these stone circles with the Druids; and 
the converse idea that they were erected ages before the Druids 
came into existence is as feasible a theory as any other. Never- 
theless, the frequency with which these hut-circles exist close to 
the cromlechs, gives better warrant for the theory that they are 
connected with the civilisation of the Stone Age, and not with 
the much later period of the Druidical rule. Sometimes the 
circle encloses a barrow, or tumulus, which was a burying place 
of the chieftains, probably; but the whole question is still the 
fighting ground of the prehistoric archmologists. One thing may 
be taken as certain, however, that these gigantic remnants looked 
much the same as they do now when Troy was being built; and 
that their original use had been forgotten even then by the people 
whose cattle grazed amongst them. Leaving this cromlech near 
Princetown and striking westward across the moors to Tavistock 
we come on a broad track of levelled green sward stretching over 
Whitechurch Down; and here we meet a remnant of another 
civilization, the remains of a stone cross—of the Celtic type—one 
of those placed there by the monks of Tavistock to mark the road 
across the moors to the distant Abbey of Buckfastleigh. The 
time when the monks passed to and fro and knelt by this way- 
side cross seems far off now—yet it is but as yesterday compared 
with then when we think of the race who dwelt amid the hut- 
circles. The broken cross looks almost as old and weather- worn 
as the chief cromlech stones, and all seem to possess a kinship with 
the phantastical pinnacles and piles of granite which crown the 
Dartmoor Tors. Viewing these from a distance it seems as though 
the hills around are crowned with ruins of castles, and rude fortifi- 
cations—it is only when we clamber to their summits that we see 
how these are the records of an age when the world was subdued by 
ice, silent save for the thunder of the rending glacier, and man, 
perhaps, with his turmoil of battle, hunting, and feasting lay far in 


Glimpses in the West. 305 


the future of time. It is enough to make us think little of ourselves 
and of our modern civilisation to stand here amid the records of 
seons, and then look down on the grey walls of Princetown : we 
have broken the arms of the good monks’ cross, my brothers, and 
none have said us nay ; we can do better now, can we not? than 
those old monks did, who raised the sign of their Master above the 
barrows of the forgotten dead ; to the lares and penates of our 
civilisation we raise a prison for an altar, and the sacrifice thereof 
is the human heart. In all these thousands of years have we 
travelled as fast as we might have done from the sacrificial altar 
of the Druid, stained with human blood ? or, out yonder in the 
western islands of the tropic sea, will there be more mercy in the 
death shot of a gattling gun than in the cleaving stroke of a flint 
hatchet? Is there more justice shown to-day in Christian 
Europe over the partition of an empire than there was amid these 
hut-dwellers for a strip of moorland, or is not might almost as 
much right now as it was then P— 


Raving politics—never at rest as this poor earth’s pale history runs— 
What is it all but the trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns? 


It was a strange though unintentional piece of irony on the 
_ part of the journalists in the West which inspired them when they 
named this last remnant of the nation’s loneliness “the play- 
ground of England.” . Leaving Princetown and striking into the 
moor due north you may walk all day and meet no human face— 
indeed you may lose yourself here, or get bogged and swallowed 
up in a morass, or break a limb among the tors and lie there till 
you die, and the search party may find your body a fortnight 
after. Noman should venture out here alone except with a compass, 
a chart, and fine weather ; in rain or mist even the shepherds lose 
their way sometimes, and must lie out until the cloud curtain lifts; 
and in winter this may not happen for days. Strange playground 
truly! And yet there is no region in England more fascinating 
to the pedestrian. It lies so many hundred feet above the sea 
level that twenty miles through its exhilarating air, even on the 
hottest day, is not so wearying asa five-mile tramp round and 
about Plymouth will prove. Just now in springtime the rolling 
uplands are a golden blaze with the bloom of the gorse; and later 
on this will give place to the purple of the heather; when Autumn 
falls the sadder tones of browning gruss and dying bracken will 





356 The Irish Monthly 


mark the year’s decline. Late in August or early in September 
come the days when Dartmoor shows its best: for then the North- 
west wind cool and chill drifts up great masses of cumulus from 
the Irish sea, and the golden lights and purple shadows chase each 
other across fell and tor, and the highest peaks get drifts of 
raincloud entangled among them, or cool the wet wind until the 
moisture, condensed into cloud, streams off before the wind like 
the blown hair of old wizards sleeping. At other times the 
olearness of the air makes all things too distinctly expressed ; but, 
whatever be the mood in which we find it, there is forever the 
same unutterable loneliness, and the same “ inviolable quietness, - 
where the solitary sound, which sometimes strikes the straining 
sense, leaves the silence which follows all the more complete. To 
describe its grandeur and its tragic beauty is beyond the power 
of words; they must be felt. In this, the sea, to which it pays 
its tribute of a thousand rushing streams, holds kinship with the 
moor. 

But before I leave this element of Devon scenery I feel that 
nothing has been said or done unless I strive to show you as best 
I may the crowning beauty of the Dartmoor fells, where Nature, 
having written all she knew of prehistoric and medieval savagery, 
wrote “Finis” at the end by Crockern Tor, and scored her pen 
beneath in the gorge of Lydford. Here on the south-western 
verge of the moor is the last vestige of that strange history, which 
began when the mists and ice dissolved southward into the new 
created seas, and which ended, so far as human records go, in the 
last efforts of primordial energy in the expiring race who peopled 
the tors; for the rest is the silence that hangs brooding to-day 
among their forgotten tombs. Some miles to the west of Tavistock, 
and just where the brown shoulder of the moor begins to feather 
into cultivation, the square grey tower of an old Norman church, 
go common on the moors, and the ivy-clad walls of an old ruined 
Norman Keep come into view, and around these cluster a few 
cottages and houses ; that is all which strikes the eye at the first 
glance. Yet this is the ghost ofa dead city, a city and civilisation 
which once rivalled Exeter in importance in Saxon days; a town 
which, out of the mists of prehistoric times, suddenly emerges 
with acivilsation, laws, and a jurisdiction of its own in full effect, 
and a barbarity in its methods of enforcing them which has made 
the nameof “ Lydford law” a bye-word of terror and of hate through 


Glimpses in the West. 357 


the past until now. One wonders what could have possessed even 
the most barbarous people to found a city high up on a barren 
moorland beyond the tracks of men, as this place stands to-day. 
Yet in this fact is the written page which we may read. A walled 
city with its fortress does not rise at any time beside a spot. where 
men have no goings to and fro; no remoteness which gave immunity 
from fear of plunder ever tempted men to settle and found a mart 
whither buyers never came; and the fact is clear that Lydford in 
the past was the centre of a commerce which gave it a mint of its 
own, and a wealth and fierce energy which made it feared by the 
surrounding country. The first signs of decay in the industry, of 
which we are now watching the last expiring efforts further west- 
ward in the tin mines of Cornwall, happened here on Dartmoor 
centuries ago, and left the moorland waste and tenantless for the 
first time since the dawn of man’s habitation, as it continues to 
this day. But when Lydford’s walls were built the moors were 
crowded with that strange race, the tin miners of Phoenecia, who 
doubtless in the past of which we have no record fought and exter- 
minated the children of the dwellers of hut-circles. Whatever truth 
may be in these traditions, or conjectures of historians, one thing 
is certain that these men of the Semitic race drove their roots 
into the soil as deep as their mines, and when Dartmoor emerges 
into the dawn of history a vast population of rude civilisation 
was crowded on its surface, and the products of a vast industry 
sailed southwards from out all the harbours of the west. And it was 
here that the birth of the idea which to-day governs our common- 
wealth took place; for in the earliest days in which any record is 
transmitted we find that the tin miners of Devon and Cornwall 
were united into a corporate guild and met to make and administer 
their laws on Hingston Down. Whether the tide of the sundering 
Tamar, flowing so far inland, carries with it too much of that 
element which Matthew Arnold has attributed to “the sullen, 
salt, estranging sea,” I cannot say, but curiously enough, the 
differences of temperament which to-day cause disagreement on 
most subjects between the two counties, each looking down on the 
other from the lofty height of her own imagination, caused a 
division in this primitive parliament early in the fourteenth 
century, and the Devon men moved their session to the amphi- 
theatre of granite stones on Orockern Tor. These were the famous 
Stannary Courts of which such gruesome records come down to 





358 The Irish Monthly. 


us, and Lydford became the centre of their effectiveness. Yet it 
would seem that the barbarity of their enactments found 
the Keep of Lydford, their prison, from old time more 
than prepared to enforce their scentences. So awful were 
the punishments carried out within its walls that the stain 
of their infamy clings to the ruined remnants to this day, 
and no bribe will tempt a native to enter them after night 
fall—since he will tell you visions and sounds will greet you there 
the mere sight of which will drive men mad. As might be 
expected the laws were mostly framed in connection with the 
mining industry, and when we read that the sentence on the 
adulterator of tin compelled him to swallow about half a pint 
of the molten metal we may guess the general tenour of the 
punishments inflicted within the walls. And yet the history of 
its iniquities does not begin here—the iniquities of the Stannary 
Courts were but a continuation of that older Lydford Law which 
was administered from the Castle in much earlier days—the 
terrible forest laws of the early Norman rule, the laws which held 
the conquered Saxon race groaning at the feet of their oppressors. 
Scarcely a quarter of a mile from the village as it now stands 
the hills of the moor dip into a shallow valley, the bottom of 
which is covered with a dense stunted brush wood, for soit appears 
at, 8 little distance. Leaving the village and going down the 
lane towards this valley we suddenly come on a bridge built over 
the wood, and a dull roar like that of distant thunder strikes the 
ear. You lean over the parapet of the bridge and to your amaze- 
ment discover that you are looking down into a dense forest in a 
gorge nearly three hundred feet below, where the great trees grow 
so thickly on its precipices that the tops of them are all that are 
visible when viewed from the village above. They meet over 
head from each side, but looking straight downwards over the 
bridge you get a glimpse of a sullen black river thundering 
through dark gloom between its precipitous walls. I do not 
think that there can be anything more wierdly beautiful than the 
scenery in this gorge when approached from the western end and 
explored throughout its length of three miles until we reach the 
bridge.’ It is a walk which is cut in the face of the cliffs for the 
most part, about twenty or thirty feet above the torrent, and 
should not be attempted by anyone with weak nerves for heights 
~erhanging running water, as a fall into the deep and swirling 
mnt would be fatal. 











The Fountain, 359 


There are several gruesome stories of mischance and fate told 
of this place, said to be haunted by pixies and evil spirits, but none 


of them are more terrible than those which the imagination will 
supply in the face of the tragic force of its beauty when the river 


thunders full with autumn rains. Elsewhere the streams of 
Dartmoor laugh and sing from sunlight into shadow and out into 
sunlight again, but the voice of this river has caught up the whole 
savage tragedy of the moors, and in the depths of this majestic 
gorge utters forever its burthen of wrong and death and change— 


a voice of days of old and days to be. 
Montacu GRIFFIN. 


THE FOUNTAIN. 


[JPWARDS towards the arching branches 
Springs the fountain in the lawn; 
With what constant force it launches 
Its bright stream from dawn to dawn! 


Towards the branches where the thrushes 
Imitate the water’s sound, 

As it falls and gurgling rushes 
Into channels underground. 


For the fount would moisten gladly 
Leaves all dried by summer sun, 

Aiming high and failing sadly 
When its little strength is done. 


But not wasted its endeavour, 
For, though reaching not the leaves, 
It makes green the fields, and ever 
Fills the thirsty land with sheaves. 


Thus should we aim high, and, failing 
In life’s first and noblest aim, 

Work some lesser good, not wailing 
That the world knows not our name. 


That we upward turn our forces 
"is some unknown impulse wills, 
As perhaps the fountain’s sources 


Trickle from the distant hills. 
F. R. A. O. 


[l hese lines were sent to us twenty years ago. They would have been 
published at the time, if the writer had sent with them his name. Perhaps “ F. R. 
A.0.” has died meanwhile ; and probably this page will not catch his eye, even if 
he be still in via.—Ep. [.M.] 


( 360 ) 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 
CHAPTER XV. 
THE SPORTS OF THE SNAGS. 


Young, and gladsome, aud free they meet— 
Voices of laughter and running feet. 
Whether the seasons be dark or fair, 

It is always summer and sunshine there. 


’ Mrs. Hamrrron Kixe. 


If Snaggery has hitherto received but passing notice, the fact 
is not due to the uninteresting nature of this out-door nursery ; 
and if the older boys of Ridingdale have been more in evidence 
than their little brothers and sisters, this is only because they 
have more to do with our history, and are more actively connected 
with the Doings of the Dale. 

Boys were generally promoted to Sniggery at the age of ten, 
and at this time Snaggery was under female rule—vice Gareth 
whose promotion was very recent. So the Empress of Snaggery 
was Maggie, aged, as she herself insisted, “a quarter to nine.” 
But if Maggie was queen, Sweetie himself was king, and tool- 
wielding brothers had made for him a veritable throne in the 
commodious arbour—a raised seat strongly fashioned and amply 
cushioned. 

The dwellers in Snaggery were generally five in number; 
Maggie and her younger sister Connie, Sweetie, Raymond, and 
Cyril—the last-mentioned being a particularly sturdy young 
gentleman of “ half-past four ” or thereabouts. But there were 
times when the three babies, Austin, Dorothy, and Antony, were 


added to the others, and on such occasions Mr. Kittleshot’e 
bewilderment was complete. It was long indeed before Crossus 


ventured into Snaggery. When he did so, he was so frightened, 
looked so puzzled, and left so abruptly, that, afterwards, Maggie 
was found in tears. However, a second visit proved more 
satisfactory, for that the great man came with pockets bulging 
with ‘‘ toys and things ’’—the exquisite flavour of the “things” 
appealing forcibly to every small member of the Snaggery cirole. 

The nearly nine-year-old Maggie was a wise and somewhat 


Doings in the Dat. 361 


wilful lady who ruled her subjects with a tongue that lashed in 
its wagging and was warranted to suppress mutiny and revolt. 
Now the etiquette of Sniggery was strict, but that of Snaggery 
was stricter. Merely to visit the latter without Maggie’s 
permission was a capitel crime—meriting the fearful punishment 
of being “ worried alive” by infuriated Snags. Even Hilary, 
whose authority now was only a little less than his father’s, had to 
sue for entrance, and parley, cap in hand, at a respectful distance 
while the Queen considered the reasonableness of his particular 
claim for admission. 

But if Maggie defended the rights of her own realm, she was 
equally considerate of the claims of Sniggery to an autonomy 
which, of its kind, was perfect. Those two unruly urchins, 
Raymond and Cyril, hankered after Sniggery as the member of 
a second eleven hankers for a place in the first. There were times 
when the needs of Maggie’s dolls were so pressing and absorbing 
that her rule of Snaggery became temporarily relaxed, and the 
two bold rebels would sally forth and snatch a fearful joy by 
creeping up to the very door of Sniggery—that Castle of the 
Giants whose bellowings would often strike terror to the souls of 
the greatly daring pigmies, sending them back to their own lair at 
an astonishing speed. 

Occasionaily, however, the Snags would put to sea on the 
great ocean of green lawn, and, at a safe distance, proceed to 
the bombardment of Sniggery with paper-pellets shot from pop- 
guns, or stinging atoms of orange-peel fired from extemporised 
catapults. In most cases the shots fell short, and it was seldom 
that the inhabitants of Sniggery could be moved to give chase— 
the exceeding excitement of which was the occasion of exquisite 
terror to the marauders. For once the giants were moved to 
action, capture was sure, and close imprisonment in Sniggery 
was desired for its own sake—a distinction rather than an 
indignity, since captors were merciful, and the captives had reason 
to hug their chains. 

There was a dungeon deep and dark in close proximity to 
Sniggery—a tool-house in point of fact, lacking windows and 
possessed of a door with a strong look. It was a place well known 
to the bigger lads, and its rigours had often been tasted by Lanaa. 
For the Colonel had made detention (varying from fifteen to 
minutes) in this cell the punishment for larking on parade, 


362 The Irish Monthly. 


anything like disorderly conduct during drill, and it was a moving 
sight to see the culprit manacled with stage handcuffs, and 
marched between two comrades in true military style to this 
place of imprisonment. The Snags, of course, were always 
exempted from confinement in the dungeon ; but sometimes when 
they were particularly annoying and obstreperous, big brothers 
would carry them to its threshold and threaten them with its 
horrors. Much oftener, however, the attack upon Sniggery 
would end in what the youngsters so dearly loved—the transfor- 
mation of Hilary and the rest into horses of great carrying power 
and much endurance,—though apt to be spirited and restive when 
little heels of wood and iron were too fiercely and frequently dug 
into their ribs. Then would the big lawn become a race-course, 
and handicaps would be many and perilous. It was sport that 
even Sweetie could share in, and by prescriptive right he always 
retained Hilary as his steed. No one, then, will be surprised to 
hear that Sweetie was a constant victor in the races. 

Mr. Kittleshot appearing suddenly on the Ridingdale race- 
course one holiday afternoon, was amazed to see the Squire him- 
self careering about in the character of a fiery steed. It wasa 
thing well understood by the little ones that if father could only 
be caught—and it was amazing how easily his capture was 
effected—he was prepared to do duty as a horse just as readily as 
Hilary and Co. 

“Fine exercise, that!” exclaimed the millionaire, as the 
Squire, flushed and breathless, allowed his rider to dismount. 

“For the children—yes,”’ said Ridingdale, laughing and 
mopping his brow. 

Mr. Kittleshot was looking about him a little apprehensively. 

“ Is the Colonel here?” he asked in a low tone. 

“ No,” answered the Squire. “ He left about an hour ago.” 

Ridingdale marvelled at the look of relief that appeared in 
the millionaire’s face, 

‘This is what the reporters would call an animated scene,” 
he said, watching the galloping bipeds with pleasure. “ Sniggery 
and Snaggery are doing duty as stables, I perceive.” 

“ Well, Sniggery is a forge just at this moment,” the Squire 
explained. ‘‘ Liarry, yonder, is being led away by his late rider, 
Cyril, to have his shoes looked to. ‘This is always an item in the 
game. By-and-by you will see the watering of the steeds, and 


Doings in the Dale. 363 


the riders, with home-made lemonade.” 

Mr. Kittleshot was looking intently in the direction of 
Sniggery, looking and smiling, but the Squire felt sure that Croesus 
was thinking of something else. Laughter rang from end to end 
of the lawn—interrupted now and then by a shriek in which there 
was little enough of fear, as one of the beasts of burden affected 
to shy, or rear, or kick. 

‘“‘T have had a very interesting interview with a person to- 
day, said Mr. Kittleshot, quite suddenly turning to the Squire, 
“and I want to talk to you about it for a few minutes.” 

The two men turned and mounted the grassy slope that led to 
the terrace. The Squire, geatly wondering, listened attentively. 

“ You may imagine the number of appeals for help that I get 
day by day,” Mr. Kittleshot began. ‘‘ Such a breakfast-table, 
morning after morning ! Practice, however, has made me skilful 
in dealing with them, for, as you know, I keep no secretary. Do 
not intend to do so at present. Well, last week I received a 
letter signed ‘‘ A. P. Byrse, Mus. Doc., Oxon.” The man was 
not asking for money. He isa member of your body, and is at 
present acting as organist and choir-master in a London church— 
St. Somebody or other—I forget the name. It appears that he 
knows Father Horbury and yourself.” 

“ Byrse!’’ exolaimed the Squire enthusiastically, ‘‘ why, he 
was at Magdalen with Father Horbury and myself. I had no 
idea he had become a Catholic. He’s one of the best all-round 
musicians I know.” | 

“Then what do you think of his settling here? I can easily 
make it worth his while. He has an invalid wife and several 
children. The doctors say Mrs, Byrse must have country air. 
Now, I told you the other day that I had set my heart upon 
promoting good music in the Dale generally, and at Timington 
in partioular. I shall never forget the people’s enjoyment of the 
band you got for me at the féte. I am glad to hear you say he 
ie an all-round musician; but does that mean that he oould 
conduct a band—get it up, I mean—and teach singing and all 
that ?” 

“ Undoubtedly,” said the delighted Squire. 

‘Very well, then; supposing Í offer him three or four hundred 
a year—we'll talk about the exact figure later on—and a house 
rent-free, could you, do you think, make use of him as singing- 


364 The Irish Monthly. 


master, or teacher of music, for your boys? Would he be useful 
to you in any capacity? Mind—it would not cost you a penny.” 

The Squire barely succeeded in keeping back his tears. 

“ Mr. Kittleshot,” he said at length, “you could not do me 
a greater service.” He would have added much more, but Crossus 
was already half way down the grassy slope. 

‘T’ve stolen another march upon you, Colonel!” muttered 
the millionaire to himself, almost coming into collision with the 
capering, caracoling Lance, who, followed by a panting little 
brother, was acting the part of a runaway horse. 

A great ory of ‘‘ Lemonade!” drowned Lance’s apologies, and 
a mobof flushed and thirsting boys conducted Mr. K. to Sniggery 
where he drank their health delightedly—in lemonade. 


—— 


CHaPEER XVI. 


THE DOINGS OF MR. KITTLES8HOT. 


You, the Patriot Architect, 
You that shape for Eternity, 
Raise a stately memorial. 
TENNYSON. 


Mr. Kittleshot had acted with a kindly sublety not suspected 
by the Squire of Ridingdale. With great adroitness Croesus 
had attacked his friend in the latter’s weakest point—his 
love for music and his desire to promote its cultivation among 
his children. The two men hed discussed the immediate 
improvement of Timington, and Kittleshot, already greatly 
influenced by a series of articles in the London Review—written by 
Ridingdale, the millionaire felt positive—submitted every one of 
his plans to the Colonel and the Squire. The owner of Timington 
disliked the phrase “ model village,” but this was what in effect 
he resolved the place should become. He had already begun to 
plant and build, and half a dozen new cottages, each of a different 
type and style, wholly detached and standing in its own little 
garden, were rising upon different parts of his estate. He had 
mentally condemned almost every dwelling-house in the hamlet— 
and not without reason. ‘The smaller cottages were dilapidated 
without being picturesque, and tiny without being cosy. As 

A» 


Doings in the Dale. 365 


soon as ever the first of the new houses were habitable, demolition 
of the old would begin. Shrub and tree-planting was proceeding 
on such a genervus scale that by the following summer Timington 
would be one vast garden. Its very approaches were lined with 
guelder rose, lilac, red-thorn, and laburnum. Struck by the 
exceeding number and beauty of the roses at Ridingdale Hall, 
Mr. Kittleshot would have bordered the road-sides with them if 
the Colonel had not dissuaded him. 

“ Don't, overdo things,” said Ruggerson, “ England is not 
Arabia, and the north is not the south. Give them hedgerows of 
wild briar, if you will. Don’t plant standards by the highway. 
Got to educate your villagers up to the lilacs and laburnums yet, 
you know.” 

The two elderly men had frequent differences of opinion, and 
the Squire was constantly called upon to arbitrate. Happily, his 
decision was always accepted—though the Colonel would grumble 
mightily for weeks when one of his own suggestions had been 
over-ruled. 

A case in point had been in relation tothe building of a public 
hall, a place to be available for concerts and entertainments of 
various kinds. Mr. Kittleshot had set his heart upon the erection 
of this much-needed recreation-room in the village of Timington 
itself. The Colonel insisted that the bigger town of Ridingdale 
was the place for a public hall. 

‘It’s only twenty minutes’ walk to Ridingdale,” he urged. 

é That Just makes all the difference,” rejoined Kittleshot. “ A 
walk of a mile there and a mile back is a serious matter in bad 
weather, and when you have been on your legs all day.” 

The Squire hesitated when the question was submitted to him. 

“ A hall of that kind is one of the crying needs of Ridingdale,”’ 
he said. “The parish school-room is at once inconvenient, and 
hard to get for any entertaiment that has not been prepared by 
the Vicar’s wife. At the same time, Ridingdale has no claim 
upon you, Mr. Kittleshot.”’ 

“‘Timington must have its publio recreation place,” said the 
millionaire with decision. ‘I will not now pledge myself to the 
building of a similar hall at Ridingdale, but I promise to consider 
the matter by and by. You see, I want my institution to 
include a public library and room for indoor games. The big 
hall itself must have its stage.” 


366 The Irish Monthly. 


“ Better put up an organ while you are about it,” the Colonel 
sald with the closest approach to a sneer that the good man was 
capable of. 

“Oh!” exolaimed Mr. Kittleshot, “the organ is already 
ordered.”’ 

“ And who's to play it P” inquired the ruffled Colonel. 

“ Well, [am hoping you yourself will sometimes favour us 
with a recital,’ the millionaire said quietly, and anxious to 
appease his offended friend. ‘ But Dr. Byrse will be here very 
soon.” 

Mr. Kittleshot had already told the Colonel that a professional 
musician was about to settle in the neighbourhood, but had not so 
much as hinted at the services the Doctor would be expected to 
render to the house and family of Ridingdale. Crasus sincerely 
hoped the Colonel would not guess that he (Kittleshot) had been 
solely guided in the choice of his man by a desire to benefit the 
Ridingdales. Indeed, the millionaire was beginning to wonder 
if a doctor of music would be willing to undertake the training 
of a village orchestra—the one thing he had devided immediately 
to start. 

* T oan’t think how it is,” said Mr. Kittleshot, anxious to 
change the conversation, “that 1 can never find Father Horbury, 
here or at home. It’s just as if the good man were playing hide 
and seek with one.” 

“Oh!” laughed the Squire, “ Father Horbury is the shyest of 
men, though when you really meet him he makes an effort to 
throw off his shyness. It is constitutional. I have known him 
since he was ten years old, and I understand him thoroughly. 
He has a perfect horror of meeting people—unless he is persuaded 
that they really want to know him, or that he can be of service to 
them in any way. If you wish to pin the good father, ask him 
to do something for you. He will be your devoted slave at once. 
Ask him to dinner and he will spring upon you a thousand 
excuses.” 

é You're right as to the last-mentioned. Since the féte—he 
couldn't wriggle out of that, fortunately—I have sent him three 
separate invitations, and for one reason or another he has each 
time begged off. Is he in the house, do you think P” 

“Sure to be,” the Squire answered looking at his watch, 

‘is now twenty minutes past twelve : in ten minutes time he 


Dongs in the Dale. 367 


, 


will release his pupils and——- ” 

é“ Be off like a shot,” the Colonel interrupted, “if you don’t 
take means to stop him.” 

The Squire went away, promising to take the required means. 
He knew that it was one of the efforts of Father Horbury’s life 
to avoid a meeting with the millionaire—not that the priest dis- 
liked or in any way disapproved of him. 

é Don’t bring us together, Jack,” the Father had pleaded 
again and again with Ridingdale. ‘I have such a frantic desire 
to ask him for money for the poor that, shy as I am, I know I 
shall beg of him one of these days. And then—— ” 

“ And then—what ?”’ asked the Squire. 

“Ó, you know what I mean. It is all very well to say to 
people, ‘I’m not begging for myself.’ Begging for others is just as 
hard as asking for a personal favour, but very few realise this or 
have the charity to meet you half way. I don’t say Mr. Kittleshot 
would not.” 

“é You have never given him the opportunity ?”’ 

é“ No. I’m saving him up for the next big case I come across.”’ 

At half-past twelve to the minute Mr. Kittleshot heard the 
clatter of many clogs leaving the house, and knew that morning 
school was over. Almost immediately afterwards, Father 
Horbury appeared in the drawing-room where Croosus was await- 
ing him. 

é I have been longing for a short chat with you—alone,” said 
the millionaire as he shook the priest’s hand. ‘“ If you happen 
to be going home, we might walk down the lane together.” 

The arrangement suited Father Horbury very well. 

“T’m going to make a sort of confession to you,” Kittleshot 
began. “You know Ridingdale better than I know him, and 
you are aware how difficult it would be for me to go to him and 
say: ‘Do let me help you in something or other—in some way 
really substantial ?’”’ 

Father Horbury nodded and his companion continued : 

“ Tt occurred to me that one of the Squire’s principal difficulties 
is connected with the education of his boys. He looks terribly 
overworked sometimes, in spite of his constant cheeriness, and J am 
afraid that what with his literary work, his teaching, and the 
management of the farm, he will overdo things sooner or later. 
Then you yourself, my dear sir, must find your double duty very 
hard.” 


868 The Irish MontAiy. 


“ Sometimes,” said the priest. At that very moment he was 
feeling quite exhausted, and the millionaire had noticed the fact. 

“é Well, now—the Squire has told you of the coming of Dr. 
Byrse? That’s right. And he has told you that the man is 
going to give music lessons to the boys P ” 

“Yes,” said the priest, wondering what was coming. 

“é All that is quite true; but you must know, Father, that it 
is not the whole truth. Byrse is a scholar, as well as a musician, 
and has at various times coached boys both in classics and 
mathematics. Now, not to beat about the bush or keep you in 
suspense, my plan is to make him the tutor of those lads, thereby 
relieving you wholly or in part, and leaving Ridingdale entirely 
free. The idea of my keeping a Mus. Doc. at 'limington for the 
sole purpose of teaching the villagers how to play and sing, is 
absurd, and the very house I have promised him is not yet built. 
Of course, 1 intend him to be useful to me in various musical 
ways; but his leisure will be great, and his means ample. 
Ridingdale has too many professors of music already, so that there 
is no chance of his getting any teaching in the neighbourhood. 
However, I shall take care that he has no need for work of this 
kind.” 

é This is an excellent and most generous scheme of yours,” 
exclaimed the priest. 

“ Ridingdale ie at present entirely off the scent,” continued 
Mr. Kittleshot, greatly delighted to find his plan approved of by 
the priest. ‘I hope you don’t think I have acted too trickily ?” 

“It is a kind of trickiness easily condoned,” said Father 
Horbury, smiling. 

“Very well. Now I want your Reverence to further my plan 
as much as possible. I was perfectly well aware that Byrse was 
‘known both to you and Ridingdale. I—well, to tell you the 
truth, I advertised for a musical tutor, and if you only knew the 
number of answers [ received, and the number of men I have 
interviewed, you would be astonished. I knew you would both 
object to a Protestant—and, under the circumstances, quite rightly. 
I did not want a mere musician. I did want a University man. 
I had almost despaired of finding ¢he man, when lo! one day, 
Byrse’s letter turned up. Poor fellow! He was willing to come 
for a hundred and fifty a year. I shall certainly give him thrice 
that sum.” 








Doings in the Dale. 369 


“ You are very generous,” said the priest warmly. 

é Not at all. Of course I shall wait and see how he does his 
work. Of his success, both you and the Squire will be excellent 
judges.” 

é To relieve Ridingdale of his teaching will certainly be to 
inorease his income,’”’ Father Horbury remarked. “ The Review 
is very anxious that he should undertake book notices &o., in 
addition to his weekly articles, but his many home duties made 
this impossible.” 

Mr. Kittleshot did nut disguise his pleasure and satisfaction. 

é TI am delighted!” he exclaimed. ‘Iam so glad you told 
me. I owe more to Ridingdale and his family than I can express. 
Amongst them, they have given me a new interest in life—new 
views of it and new principles in connection with it. A visit to 
the Squire’s is my panacea for ennui and low spirits. I don’t 
understand it at all. Can’t explain it if you ask me. Of course 
he strikes me as being the only contented man I ever knew ; but 
that doesn’t altogether account for the satisfaction I find in his 
society. Always kind, he kept me at a distance for some time ; 
seemed shy of me, you know. He is different now, and I hope 
he will soon regard me as a friend.” 

s You are showing yourself a true friend, Mr. Kittleshot,” the 
priest said, as they stopped at the door of the little presbytery. 
But, as they shook hands, Father Horbury added: ‘‘ And you are 
quite right in supposing that the reason of Ridingdale’s happiness 
does not lie on the external surface of his life.” 

‘I wonder what he meant by that, now?” Croesus asked 
himself when (after declining the priest’s invitation to enter the 
house), he found himself walking on alone. ‘I hope he won't 
try to drag his religion into our conversation. I couldn’t stand 
that. I should like Ridingdale equally well if he called him- 
selfanagnostic. ForI suppose. . . . Well, now [after a 
considerable pause] I wonder—yes, I wonder if, as an unbeliever, 
he would be the same man ? ”’ 

Next morning’s post brought to the Reverend Hubert 
Horbury an envelope containing four five-pound Bank of England 
notes, and a sheet of paper with the words typed upon it :—“ For 
your poor.” 

The priest did not need to examine the post-mark. 

é“ He can’t refuse it,” Mr. Kittleshot had said to himself, “ but 

Vou. xxv. No 801 27 


370 The Irish Monthly. 


he’s the kind of fellow who would find it hard to ask for any 
fraction of it. Such men must be encouraged. The fault is not 
a common one.” 

That same day, Dr. Byrse with his wife and family arrived 
at Timington Hall, remaining there for the present, as Mr. 
Kittleshot’s guests. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


FROM PLAY TO PRAYER. 


Why should we fear youth’s draught of joy, 
If pure, will sparkle less P 
Why should the cup the sooner cloy 
That God hath deigned to bless? 
KEBLe. 


It was a Sunday morning in July. ‘The roses were in full 
bloom, and their perfume filled the entire lawn and floated in 
through every open window of Ridingdale Hall. 

Breakfast was over, and a single word spoken by the Squire 
as he rose from his chair greatly excited his boys’ curiosity. 
Most of their father’s time between the Sunday morning meal 
and the second Mass was always given to them, and on this 
occasion they felt sure that he had some more than usually interest- 
ing item of news to impart. 

Long before the little mob reached the lawn, Hilary and Harry 
had taken their father into custody, each passing an arm through 
his and trying in vain to silence the fire of questions kept up by 
the capering excited crowd in front. Ridingdale smiled and 
shook his head, but said never a word until they reached Sniggery. 
Then as he seated himself they fell npon him, literally pressing 
upon him so olosely that he had to ory for meroy—and air. 

“T won't say a word till I’ve lit my pipe!” he exclaimed. 
é Ah!” putting his hand to his pocket, “I’ve left it on my desk. 
Who’ll fetch it?” 

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the entire 
company fled like one boy—Lance leading easily, but soon over- 
taken by his longer-legged elders. When the seven lads had 
disappeared, their father rose hastily and ran into the concealment 
of the shrubbery. 


| 














Doings in the Dale. 371 


A loud chorus of ‘“Oh’s” resounded when they returned (in 
about a minute and a half) to find that the parent-bird had 
flown. 

“é What, a chouse !”’ 

“ Awful sell !” 

é He's hiding !” 

“ Look in Snaggery, Will!” 

"é He's in the orchard !” 

“Try the tool-house !” 

“Don’t make such a row!” commanded Hilary, at length, 
and then, lowering his voice and speaking to Harry—‘“ Let us 
draw the shrubbery at opposite ends.”’ 

The silence was soon broken by a joyous cry, and with the whole 
seven clinging to him, the Squire was brought back to Sniggery. 

“ You”ve forgotten the matches, of course,” he laughed, as he 
filled his pipe—Lance acting as pouch-bearer. But three several 
boxes were thrust forward by three different hands. 

“ We've got you now, father,” said Gareth, claiming the 
privilege of the youngest to a seat on the paternal knee. 

The Squire’s eyes glistened as he puffed at his pipe and looked 
round affectionately upon the seven up-turned eager faces. He 
was wondering which of them loved him most, and deciding that 
he himself could not say which of the lads was dearest to him— 
from the big Hilary who sat on his right hand, to the little Gareth 
whose arm was about his neck, 

“ Well, my darlings,” he began, “I won't tease you any more. 
You are going to have a new tutor, and I am sure you will like 
him.” 

“ Not in place of Father Horbury ?” asked Lance, anxiously. 

“ No, dear, not exactly in hia place, though I hope Dr. 
Byrse will relieve him a goud deal.” 

“ Doctor !” exclaimed several, at once. 

é“ Yes, doctor. Doctor of musio.”’ 

Several musical enthusiasts, including Harry and Lance, 
danced into the open in order to relieve their feelings, and returned 
making that peculiar music of shaking thumbs upon fingers—an 
accomplishment only boys excel in. 

‘* ‘Then he must be a swell P” queried Harry. 

‘“‘That depends upon the meaning you attach to the word 
‘swell’ in your vocabulary, Harry. He is a Master of Arts as wel’ 


379 The Irish Monthly. 


asa Mus. Doc., and I remember him—he belonged to my own 
college—as one of the first men of his year.” 

“Then he is an old friend of yours, father P” asked Hilary. 

é“ Yes, a very old friend. But I have not seen him for a 
quarter of a century. In fact, I had almost forgotten his 
existence. How in the world Mr. Kittlesnot managed to unearth 
him isa mystery. In fact, I may as well tell you, my dears, that 
the whole business of his coming here is a puzzle.” 

é What has Mr. Kittleshot to do with it P” enquired Harry. 

“Simply everything,” the Squire answered with a comical 
twist of his face. “ Only one thing is clear to me at present, and 
that is—Dr. Byrse will be at my service—and yours, you scamps 
—for five hours every working day, and that he is able, ready, 
and willing to teach you Latin and Greek and Mathematios.”’ 

“ Won’t it be very expensive ?”’ George put in. 

The Squire laughed heartily as he said : 

“ The joke comes in just there. I have to pay nothing.” 

In sheer wonderment the lads were silent for a space, and then 
one and all began to ask so many questions that their father made 
a bold, but immediately frustrated, attempt to escape. 

é“ You will see Dr. Byrse this very day,” said the Squire; 
in fact you have probably seen him, without knowing him, 
already, for he was at the early Mass this morning.” 

“ When will the hay-making begin, father ?”’ 

Lance asked the question a little anxiously. The long summer 
holidays always began with the hay harvest. 

é Tí there’s no change in the weather, the cutting will begin 
to-morrow morning.” 

And under cover of the applause with which his announcement 
was received, the father of fourteen made his escape. 

There were loud calls from Snaggery as he ran across the lawn, 
but the Squire only waved his hand to the Snags, and shouted— 
‘After dinner, my darlings! ”—He had spent too much time 
with the Snigs. 

However the late cheering in Sniggery created such curiosity 
in Snaggery that Maggie was constrained to send an ambassador 
to Hilary and Co., in the person of Raymond. 

“ Please, Maggie’s compinents and—what’s the matter P” 

Lance seized his little brother, and, hoisting him shoulder high, 
led the way to Snaggery. 








Doings in the Dole. 378 


“ You may noí come in,” cried the imperious queen, as the 
seven lads stood in front of her palace and bowed witb comical 
solemnity. “I have just put all my dolls to bed, and I can’t 
have a troop of great boys waking them up again. And please 
don’t shout ‘cause Aladdin [her favourite doll] has got a bad 
headache.” 

(It transpired later that the small pickle Cyril, having lost his 
drumstick, had seized, and used, Aladdin as a substitute. The 
sufferings of Maggie’s favourite were supposed to be agonising). 

“ Your majesty,” began Hilary with the gravity of a minister 
of state, “will be pleased to know that the holidays will begin on 
Wednesday next at six a.m. Weather permitting the first of a 
series of banquets will be served in the ten-acre at one o’clock 
precisely.” 

é Children in arms not admitted,” somebody added. 

‘‘Perambulators to be ordered half a hour before dinner,” 
remarked Lance. 

é All stray dolls shot,” said Harry. 

‘Queens and millionaires,” quoth George, “not provided 
for.” 

“That will do, boys,” said Maggie severely, and determined 
not to show the elation that she felt. ‘ You may go—all of you. 
I cannot have poor Aladdin woke up. A pretty night I shal 

have with him, / know.” 

é“ Your majesty’s will is our law,” spoke Hilary with the bow 
of a Spanish don. Then wheeling round he called to his brothers : 
‘Attention! Shoulder arms! Quick march !” 

‘“‘Sweetie, dear,” said Maggie as the seven rebels marched 
away, “it's time we got ready for Mass.” 

“I’m so glad,” returned the blind boy, gently. ‘‘ What a 
nice day Sunday is! I wish it would come oftener.” 

“é Mother says we get a tiny little peep into heaven every 
Sunday—if we are good.”—Maggie spoke with a look of great 
seriousness. 

“And sometimes I think a great big peep. Only” Sweetie 
added with a sigh, “ the door shuts so soon. I look right in when 
the bell rings and I know our Lord is lifted up. And once or 
twice when Lance began to sing all alone and so softly —I think 
it was O Salutaris—the door stood wide open until he'd finished.” 

Maggie paused in the act of putting an extra coverlet over the 





374 The Irish Monthly 


prostrate and ill-used Aladdin—paused and looked at Sweetie the 
mystic—the child who dwelt habitually in a land of darkness, but 
whose soul was so often deluged with an excess of light. Talking 
to brothers, little or big, was easy to Maggie, and she could hold 
her own with the most voluble of them; but to say the right thing 
to Sweetie, and at the right moment, was one of the small maiden’s 
difficulties. They were alone now, for Connie and Raymond, and 
the drum-beating Oyril, had followed their big brothers into the 
house. 

So Maggie gently took the blind boy’s hand, and the two 
children went out in silence from the shade and coolness of 
Snaggery into the hot July sunshine, inhaling, as they crossed the 
lawn, the sweetness of countless roses. 

An hour later, father and mother, sons and daughters, big and 
little, were on their knees before the altar of God. Maggie was 
kneeling between Raymond and Sweetie, and, as the Elevation 
drew near, the little girl glanced involuntarily at the sightless 
child on her right. His complete absorption sent Maggie back 
to her own devout prayers. 


“ And now the sacring-bell rang clear 
And ceased ; and all was awe,—the breath 
Of God in man that warranteth 
The inmost, utmost things of faith. 
He said: ‘ O God, my world in Thee!’ ”’ 


A low hum of organ harmony began to float upon the dead 
silence that followed, and Lance’s voice shook a little as it gave 
out the opening notes of the O Salutarts in a tender pianissimo 
that served to intensify tha tumultuous declamation of the “ Bella 
premunt hostilia,” and forced the listening worshipper to make the 
prayer of the succeeding line his own. But when the singer 
reached “ Nobis donet in patria,” and the sweet words “in patria” 
were repeated again and again in an ever-changing cadence of 
subdued melody, strong men bent their heads in tearful worship 
of the hidden God, and one little kneeling figure sobbed aloud. 


Davip Brarng, 8.J. 


(To be continued). 








( 375 ) 


. MORNING. 
DREAM of brightness in the east ; pale moon 
And wan stars fading from a troubled sky; 
Quick stir of Jarks in corn, as, brushing by, 
They toss abroad the windflower’s frail balloon, 
Spill the rich nectar from the rose, and soon 
In ecstasy go greeting far and high 
The coming day. Wet bluebells, where they lie, 
Shake low from jewelled peals a welcome tune. 


Now dying eyes strain fast for a clear sight 
Of the fair hills, or one beloved face; 

And ships, that sailed out in the dark of night, 
Send back again to each familiar place 

A passionate farewell. In the dim light, 
For morning meal the blackbird sings his grace. 


NOON. 


White pillars in the clouds, and searching heat 
That shimmers over far green fields. Hot kine 
Knee-deep within the stream where broad leaves shine, 
Freed from malicious fly in cool retreat. 
Tired reapers “mid the fresh sheaves damp and sweet 
Lie down to rest. Yon road like a grey line 
Goes glancing through the lonesome hills. Small sign 
Of life : a drayman bringing home his wheat 
Plods through the rising dust with creaking wheels, 
And has no heart to sing or urge his team ; 
Oft to his parchment bower in frenzy reels 
The wasp, while the small bee, where heath-flowers gleam, 
On bloom and bloom alights, and sips, then steals, 
Still humming low, where cowslips droop and dream, 


ALICE EsMonDeE. 


( 876 ) 


SIR JOHN GILBERT, LL.D., F.8.A. 


In Memoriam. 


A GOOD and gifted man who did a great work for Ireland has 

been taken away from us. Sir John Gilbert died on the 
20th May, 1898. He had reached that very year of his life 
which we have noticed to be the last for several others with whom 
he was connected immediately or indirectly, by friendship or by 
community of tastes and pursuits—his friends, Dr. Russell of 
Maynooth, and John O’Hagan, the gifted lawyer and poet, and 
earlier Eugene O’Curry, and now Sir John Gilbert, all died in 
their 68th year. 


With regard to our illustrious friend—for we need not pretend 
to speak of him with the impartiality of a stranger—we have not 
obeyed the injunction of Holy Writ, Ne laudes hominem in itd sud. 
We have not waited for his death to pay the tribute of our 
admiration for his immense and most fruitful labours. Six years 
ago exactly next month, this Magazine devoted a dozen of its 
pages to a somewhat minute account of Mr. Gilbert’s historical 
writings, with as many personal details as we found in Men of the 
Time. We shall not repeat anything that was set down in that 
place, but we quote the summary furnished by The Weekly 
Register of May 28th. 

“Sir John Gilbert, Vice-Presidentof the Royal Irish Academy, 
and one of Jreland’s most eminent historians, died suddenly, in 
Dublin, on Monday afternoon, while on his way to a meeting of 
the Academy. Born in 1829, in Dublin—in which city his father 
was Portuguese Consul—he was, in 1867, appointed Secretary of 
the Public Record Office, and held the post until its abolition in 
1875. He was Inspector of Manuscripts in Ireland for the Royal 
Commission on Historical Manuscripts, and his magnificent edition 
of the National Manuscripts of Ireland is probably the work by 
which he will be longest remembered. He was Librarian of the 
Royal Irish Academy, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, one 
of the four Trustees appointed by the Crown for superintending 
the National Library of Ireland, and Honorary Professor of 
Archeology in the Royal Academy of Arts, Dublin. Sir John 


I u———— 








Sir John Gilbert. 3747 


Gilbert devoted a vast amount, of attention to the more recondite 
materials of Irish history, and, as a Member of the Council of the 
Royal Irish Academy, gave a great impetus to Celtio studies. 
His chief works are the History of the City of Dublin, the History 
of the Viceroys of Ireland from 1172 to 1504, and the National 
Manuscripts of Ireland. By his marriage with Miss Rosa 
Mulholland, Sir John Gilbert’s name became familiar to lovers of 
literature less “ speoial ” than that to which he himself was 
devoted; and to Lady Gilbert we express the heartfelt sympathy 
of her innumerable friends and readers here in England, in this 
hour of her bereavement.” 

We may venture to add to this last allusion of the English 
journalist the remark that there is a touching appositeness in the 
exquisite lines which the same number of The Weekly Register quotes 
as having been lately contributed by Lady Gilbert to,the American 
religious journal Zhe Ave Maria, under the title of “ The 
Invitation,” 

Belovéd, fainting and footsore, 
Come into my garden ; 

Open stands the mystic door, 
And I am watch and warden. 

I alone, the janitor, 


Wait long by the open door,— 
I, your lover, am watch and warden. 


Have you lingered by the way ? 

Yet come into My garden, 
Even at the close of day, 

See, I have flowers of pardon 
In My hands to make you gay,— 
Wear My passion-flower, I pray, 

Beloved, come into My garden ! 

Happy they whom the Divine Lover invites thus lovingly to 
wear His passion-flower. They shall come into His garden. 

“ R. 0.” in The Irish Figaro states with absolute truth that 
“in a day in which a great deal of scamped work passes muster, 
Sir John Gi)bert’s writings are all marked by the evident sincerity 
and laborious research which they display; ” and he adds: “A 
truly great and honest man has passed away from amongst us, 
and our lives are the poorer by his loss, for not alone has a great 
writer ceased to entertain and instruct us, but a most lovable 
personality can no longer strengthen and delight us by his 
presence.” 


378 The Irish Monthly. 


Instead of further extracts from the tributes of respect which 
Sir John Gilbert’s death evoked from all the prominent journals 
of London and Dublin, we shall content ourselves with citing the 
testimony of a private correspondent. ‘‘ He was one of the few 
really great historians of the age— great not only in his patient 
industry in collecting facts, but (what is infinitely higher) in his 
power of seeing the facte in their true relations. All the English 
papers have borne witness to this.” 

One of them—The Athenwum-—while claiming him as “a 
contributor though at long intervals,” emphasised its tribute to his 
absolute impartiality and trustworthiness of research, by 
pronouncing Sir John Gilbert to have been “an ardent Nationalist 
and a fervent Roman Catholic.” He was indeed both; and he 
was also, as 1/e Speaker says, “ & man of a keen sense of honour, 
admirable in all the social relations of life.” 

Ireland is bound to cherish the memory of Sir John Gilbert 
as one of her worthiest sons, who gave the persevering labours of 
a lifetime, with scanty enough encouragement, to the elucidation 
of her history, of many epochs of which a prejudiced and one- 
sided version only had been given previously. At the same time 
we cannot deny that England may claim a share in him. His 
father was an Englishman from Devonshire, who settled in 
Dublin and chose an Irish wife, Mary Costello. He was a 
Protestant, but his children were brought up carefully in their 
mother’s religion. This was not merely the consequence of Mr. 
Gilbert’s comparatively early death; for I have heard his son 
repeat a remurk made by the elder John Gilbert when giving his 
consent to the earnest wishes of his young wife: ‘ Well, however 
it may be for the next world, you are certainly not making the 
wisest choice for our boy as far as this world is cencerned.” This 
may have regarded the eldest boy Henry, for the child to whom 
his father’s name was given was only four years old when his 
father died on the ‘ird of August, 1833, aged 41 years. ‘No 
man fulfilled better the duties of his station, or ever left the 
world more deservedly regretted by all who knew him.” This 
sentence is engraved on his tombstone in Glasnevin, no doubt at 
the dictation of his young widow ; and, when she in her turn passed 
away many years later in 1870, her name is followed by the words, 
é Mourned by her children, beloved by the poor. May she rest in 
peace. Amen.” Her family consisted of three boys (of whom 





Sir John Gilbert. 379 


one died in infancy) and three girls. The last survivor was a 
devoted son and brother ; and after his obligations to his mother 
and sisters had been perfectly fulfilled to the end, his unselfish 
sacrifices were rewarded in the manner that these holy and 
affectionate souls would have most desired for him. 

Mrs. Hemans tells us very sweetly how ‘“‘The Graves of a 
Household ” may be “ severed far and wide ;” yet there is pathos 
also when the members of a household are not thus scattered bat 
come one by one to take their place as tenants of one grave. So 
it was with Sir John Gilbert’s family: his mortal remains lie 
with theirs, not far from the original entrance to our noble city of 
the dead, which will soon far outnumber the city of the living. 
We have given the dates of the death of John Gilbert, senior, and 
of his illustrious son; and it is instructive to add that their 
respective numbers in the census of Glasnevin are 3,533 and 
434,205. Father and son are separated by more than four hundred 
and thirty thousand. Sir John Gilbert’s grave is very close to 
that of his dear friend, the poet Denis Florence MacCarthy. 
These names must not be forgotten in Ireland. 

The splendid tomes, royal octavos, and folios, in which a part— 
alas ! only a part—of the fruit of Sir John Gilbert’s vast researches 
is stored, can for the most part, but not exclusively, be consulted 
in great libraries. Though his services were in some instances 
enlisted by the State, and though the Corporation of Dublin 
showed a proper public spirit in engaging him to decipher and 
edit the ancient city records, his labours were in the main carried 
on at the cost of great personal sacrifice with a patient and 
cheerful enthusiasm that was truly noble. There is a phrase that 
has been often used, but never with greater justice than in the 
case of Sir John Gilbert: he has not left his like behind him. 

We will not trust ourselves to sum up the moral of this useful 
and great career, but will make use of the briefest within our 
reach. The Daily Express wrote thus on the 27th of May; the 
cautious adverb that it begins with was altogether unnecessary, 
and with Dublin in the first sentence ought to have been joined 
the name of Ireland — 

“Probably no Irishman of this generation has contributed so 
much that is of value to the students of the records of Dublin as 
Sir John Gilbert. He was not alone a very patient and a very 
learned student of the old materials, but he had the gift of a 


380 The Irish Monthly. 


pleasant literary style and an eye for dramatio contrasts. His 
skill as a literary man had not the effect on him which such gifts 
sometimes have on those who delve into the past, for he was 
always accurate and painstaking. He searched through the old 
records with that enthusiasm which a life-long study made an 
easy task. ‘To find some new light on the dark pages of Irish 
history was to him a sufficient reward for months of weary labour. 
He was earnest and very painstaking, and to the student anxious 
to learn something about Ireland he has provided valuable 
assistance. His history of the Streets of Dublin is not only valuable 
asa book of reference, but most interesting, and it is full of 
touches which show how much the author knew about the people 
and the place. The Calendar of the Dublin Corporation is 
unfinished, but the Volumes which have been published are so full 
of information and so well arranged that it is to be hoped some- 
one will put in a more brief form the multitude of facts which are 
set forth. Sir J. T. Gilbert was unknown outside a small circle 
of personal friends, and he had no desire for that fictitious fame 
which is so dear to some pretenders in the republic of letters. He 
was an honest and a very hard worker, and he has left behind 
him a memory which will be regarded with a respect and 
admiration that will increase as the years pass by.” 


AN ARROW. 


OD sent an arrow earthward from above, 
I saw not then the wisdom or the love. 
I heard it rushing through the summer air, 
But closed my ears and shuddered in despair ; 
I closed my ears, I would not listen then. 
In autumn came the dreaded sound again. 
At length no more the dart J strove to shun ; 
With whitened lips I moaned, “ Thy will be done.” 
On sped the winter, soft fell winter’s snow. 
I slowly bared my breast to meet the blow, 
Then turned towards it—swift the dart came nigh 
And struck me when I saw my mother die. 
Wounded and bleeding, at God’s feet I knelt, 
Blinded with tears; nor peace nor hope I felt, 
Till some sweet voice came whispering in my ear: 
‘* All whom He chasteneth are held most dear. 
Trust thou in Lim, nor at His will demur— 
To thee an arrow came, a crown to her.” 
JE88IR TULLOOE. 








( 381 ) 


CLAVIS ACROSTICA. 
A Key To “ Dusiin Acrostics.” 


No. 32. 


{Part XVII, was our last instalment; but it will save space 
and trouble to follow our little book henceforth and make our 
explanations as brief as possible | 


I. 


I am one-half of Europe's proudest city — 
I am a lord more pompous far than witty— 
In colleges I exercise control— 

O’er frozen plains my icy billows roll. 


II. 


Poor Mistress Bluebeard sat disconsolate 
Talking to sister Anne about her fate, 
And said, whilst asking if she saw relief, 
I was the cause of all her cares and grief. 


HI. 


Whilst deeds of chivalry entranced the knight, 
I was the squire’s dear solace and delight— 
And one far-famed in noted comedy 

Once said he wished himself set down for me, 


1. One source from whence come England’s future kings, 
2. I am alone, to me no comrade clings. 
3. Whene’er a mighty hero asks for fame, 
Humanity shall thunder out my name. 
H. 


H. was Thomas Harris, Q.C., a clever barrister dead and for- 
gotten, as happens often to clever barristers. His verses are inspired 
by Donkey, the first syllable of which he paraphrases in four 
very ingenious ways. His quatrain about the whole, “ Donkey,” 
supposes some acquaintance with Cervantes and Shakespeare. 
The lights are Denmark [ Princess Alexandra], one, and [Marshal] 
Ney. See “ Life of Napoleon Bonaparte.” 


( 382 ) 


TABLE D’HOTE NEIGHBOURS. 


OME time ago, when my travels took me to Germany, Í set 
down for the amusement of my friends a description of the 
most interesting neighbours whom I found myself beside in the 
varied chances of table d’héte life at a large and fashionable hotel. 
I was seeing life en beau on that occasion, and my fellow-diners 
were for the greater part people of distinction—statesmen, 
warriors, diplomats, divines, with their wives and daughters, artists 
whose operas and pictures were already familiar to the world, and 
royalties highly placed in the “Almanach de Gotha.” This 
distinguished company was drawn together from distant enda of 
the earth, to profit of the salutary waters which the neighbourhood 
afforded, or of the skill of a world-renowned oculist whose klinik 
was as noted a feature of the town as the Curhaus. In fact, we 
were all either cases, or at best attendants in the suite of cases, 
but we managed to amuse ourselves tolerably well quand méme. 
Here (an unusual experience at a Continental table d’héte) there 
were at least as many men as women, and the conversation took 
a wide range and was enlivened with a fair share of wit and 
wisdom, as well as by a certain sparkle and piquancy, which would 
scarcely have been found in company composed exclusively of 
either sex. Since then I have made a visit to Florence, put up at a 
pension (Florence is noted for its pensions), and seen life from 
quite a different point of view. Here we womenkind were in an 
overwhelming majority, something like ten to one; for men, and 
especially American men, must work that the women may make 
the grand tour. Many of us were young and charming, and 
trans-Atlanticto boot, and someof us had plenty of money to spend, 
to judge by the pyramids of parcels daily delivered at our hall- 
door from what the fair Americans called the curio stores. 

At Wieskaden the dinners were admirable, and the diners 
interesting, and as the outside attractions were scanty, for the 
pursuit of health, even with the aid of mineral baths, beakers of 
bubbling Kockbrunner, and an incomparable oculist, is apt to be 
a little wearisome, we gathered round the table d'hóte disposed to 
be amusing and amused, each guest endeavouring to contribute 
something towards making the board around which we met 














Table D'Hóte Netghbours. 883 


a truly social one. Now at Florence the case was precisely 
the opposite. The outside attractions were varied and delightful, 
while the meals were quite uninteresting episodes, “to be got 
through with” as our American contingent would say, as 
speedily as possible. We had little leisure to study our neighbours, 
but some few among them were such clearly defined specimens of 
types commonly to be met with at pensions that they were 
recognisable at a glance. First there was the middle-aged 
English maiden lady, or gentlewoman, as I feel sure she would 
have described herself, quietly dressed, and with an air of 
propriety and seemly behaviour radiating from every prim fold 
and modest quilling of the black silk garment which clothed her 
as with a robe of righteousness. She had, from her long residence 
abroad, so far outgrown her insular prejudices as to greet us with 
a reassuring little bow of welcome as we took our places, and even 
to wish us good morning, though we had not been introduced to 
her nor authenticated in any way. 

Though perfectly unassuming in manner, this little lady was 
impressive from her intense air of respectability, and she naturally 
enjoyed a good deal of consideration from her fellow-lodgers. 
Indeed, to her own country-women she seemed in some 
inexplicable manner to represent church, state, monarchical 
government, and all else that is most precious to right- 
thinking Britishers. Her keen interest in and exact acquaint- 
ance with the movements of Her gracious Sovereign and all 
her royal belougings helped, no doubt, to create this im- 
pression, for the details she gave us daily of how her Majesty was 
looking, at what hour she had driven out with Princess Beatrice, 
and whom she had honoured with a command to dinner, though 
they might possibly have been culled from the “ Morning Post,” 
rather gave one the idea of having been communicated. Though 
she always spoke of her Sovereign with bated breath, she allowed 
herself more license in speaking of her fellow subjects—the “dear 
Wales,” who she rejoiced were at length arousing themselves 
to the necessity of settling the sweet Princesses. No wonder we 
felt she was a personage when she said as simply as if she were 
speaking of her daily associates, “ Í was not sorry to be abroad 
the season following the terrible calamity of the Duke of Ularence’s 
death. It would have been too sad to be at home when the ‘ dear 
Wales’ were in such sad trouble. Of course, Í should not have 








384 The Irish Monthly, 


cared to go anywhere under the circumstances.” And then she 
favoured us from time to time with “my brother the rector’s” 
opinions on many things, which opinions, whether they were on 
the respective merits of clear soup or thiok, the demerits of the 
new Laureate, the attitude of the Emperor William towards Eng- 
land, the hollowness of Mr. Gladstone’s Egyptian policy, or what 
not, were expected to be received as oracles which it would be 
impious to debate. She was not in the least dogmatic or over- 
bearing at first hand, but she had a gentle way of insisting—“ I 
feel sure my brother holds differently,” or “Í hardly think the 
reotor would agree with you’’—which admitted of no contradic- 


tion. 
An American who sat opposite to her had occasionally the 


temerity to differ from the entirely English point of view from 
which the rector’s sister regarded European politics, and as I 
announced myself as an Australian, [ was sometimes oxlled in to 
arbitrate between them. Qn one side it was hoped that a colonist 
and inhabitant of a great continent might have wider sympathies 
and larger views than could reasonably be expected from an 
islander, while on the other hand a good deal of confidence was 
felt in the duty and allegiance I owed to the dear mother country. 
As a matter of fact, I did not find my position of umpire a very 
agreeable one, for though the American generally gave me credit 
for deciding according to my convictions, the Englishwoman was 
only satisfied if I agreed with her. When I gave judgment for 
her, she accepted me as a compatriot and a person of intelligence 
whom it would give her pleasure to introduce to the rector some 
day ; but when I decided against her, I sank at once to the posi- 
tion of an insignificant colonist of republican tendencies, unworthy 
of the privilege of belonging to an empire on which the sun never 
sete, and, of course, not quite the kind of person her brother would 
care to cultivate. 

At a little distance from the group of which I made a member 
was an example of quite another type, familiar to Continental 
travellers—a lady who began life as a cook, and ended as Madame 
la Comtesse, or, as in this instance, as la Signora Contessa. Of 
course I do not for a moment wish to imply that foreign counts, 
as a rule, marry their cooks—as a matter of fact a fair percentage 
of them marry American heiresses—and such of them as are not 
so fortunate as to secure transatlantic brides dowered in dollars 








Table D'Hóte Neighbours. 385 


and up-to-date accomplishments ally themselves in most cases 
with ladies of their own country.and station in life. But some 
strange mésalliances must occur to furnish the amazing countesses 
one sometimes encounters. I was not near enough to this one to 
profit of her conversation, which appeared to be an angry mono- 
logue interlarded with frequent and imperious orders to the waiters, 
but I was well within sight of her extraordinary behaviour. Rarely 
have I seen a professional juggler perform such perilous feats 
with a sharp-bladed knife as this swarthy Contessa treated us to 
gratuitously. To eat peae with a knife is not at all an unusual 
table d’héte accomplishment. Indeed, in Germany it appears to 
be the recognised manner of disposing of them by people other- 
wise fairly well bred, but our Contessa managed with consummate 
skill the much more delicate operation of consuming quantities of 
gravy without aid of any other instrument. Then the way in which 
she sprawled over the table, leaning not only both her arms but a 
great part of her body on it, and the habit she had of pawing and 
pinching each apple and peach in the dish of fruit, or even each 
roll in a basket of bread, till she had hit on the one that pleased 
her best, set one wondering what possible attraction she can have 
had for Il Signor Conte, for the selfishness which openly grasps the 
best, without any consideration for others, must always be unlovely, 
even if allied to personal charms, in which the poor countess was 
wofully deficient. At the end of three days it was intimated to 
our landlady by some of the guests that we should be glad to be 
relieved of the company of the ex-cook, and she disappeared, to 
the relief of all, especially her near neighbours, and the waiters, 
Luigi and Ernesto, whom she had run round unmercifully. 

Then we had a lively little American who was by way of being 
a beauty, and whose toilettes were a constant refreshment to the 
eye. ven in the manless condition of the house she possessed, 
in addition to a devoted husband, who delighted in her daintiness 
and general superiority, a small band of admirers with whom she 
flirted gaily and quite within bounds. Some of the American 
girls, who had come to Europe to study, were of an age to have 
been carefully chaperoned had they been Continentals or even 
English, but they appeared to be quite oapable of taking care of 
themselves. They usually went about in bands of threes and 
fours, and were not likely to come to much harm, These girls 
had, as so many Americans have, a perfect thirst for information, 

Wem. xxvs. No, 301. 28 


386 The Irish Monthly. 


and with their Ruskins, Hares, and Mrs. Oliphants in hand, went 
steadily to work to master Florence. They were so thorough that 
it is scarcely fair to dismiss them in a line, but I only aim at - 
taking snap-shots between the courses of the table d'hóte, and its 
last dish has been served. 

Susan Gavan Dourrv. 





FOR THOSE WHO SUFFER. 


ITTHAT mother, whose sweet face with love doth beam 
Sitting amidst her daughters, will not tell 

Which one she loves the most, all loved so well. 

In household work or school-task it would seem 

They each have greatly pleased her. From her speech 
They think she loves them for what things they’ve done— 
She has a secret preference for one 

Deep in her heart where no chance eye may reach. 

It is for the small babe who lies asleep 
And showeth her no work at set of sun, 
But nestles to her, now the day is done, 

And knoweth only how to smile and weep. 


We sometimes fancy that we work for God 
Because He deigns mayhap our deeds to bless, 
They in themselves being dead and valueless 

Except to pass the time from womb to sod. 

We little guess, though, how our dear Lord turns 
From those who labour unto those who lie 
In patient suffering as the days go by, 

And how for them His love most warmly burns. 


JOSEPHINE LoreEtz. 


( 887 ) 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


1. We must defer till next month our formal welcome to Mrs. 
Tynan Hinkson’s new volume of “Country Songs” to which she has 
given the fanciful name of ‘‘The Wind in the Trees,” and which her 
publisher, Mr. Grant Richards, has brought out very daintily. The 
reader will find in the front advertising pages of our present number 
a litany of praises from the critics of two volumes of verses that we 
announced last month—Father Fitzpatrick’s ‘‘ Virgo Preedicanda,”’ 
and the Anthology of ‘Sonnets on the Sonnet,” which has the same 
editor as our Magazine. The criticisms indeed passed on the latter 
volume will be treated of in a special article. It has been welcomed 
very cordially by Zhe Zimes, Scotsman, Literature, Notes and Queries, 
Glasgow Herald, and Manchester Guardian; and in Ireland by The 
Nation, Daily Express, Independent, Freeman's Journal, and Jrish Times. 

2. Characteristics from the Life of Cardinal Wiseman. Selected by 
the Rev. T. E. Bridgett, C.SS.R. (London: Burns and Oates). 

From the Works of the first Archbishop of Westminster the 
Redemptorist, Father Bridgett, has made an admirable selection of 
passages which are divided into five parts— polemical, - doctrinal, 
moral, devotional and miscellaneous. The list of the Cardinal’s 
books and essays fills six pages, and the variety of the subjects shows 
the marvellous versatility of his genius. He was a holy and a great 
man; and Ireland is proud of her share in him. 

3. We may group together three books consisting of sketches of 
Irish character. One of them indeed is a connected story, 
é“ Ballygowna,” by Robert Grierson (Moran & Co. Aberdeen). It is 
clever enough of its kind and smartly written. 

‘‘The Humours of Donegal” by James MacManus (London: 
Fisher Unwin), is made up of seven stories, chiefly humorous with a 
rather extravagant strain of humour. The most important London 
newspapers have given emphatic praise to earlier works of the same 
kind by '““Mao.” We confoss we plead guilty to being suspicious of 
Irish: stories that please English critics; and we cannot be quite so 
enthusiastic over “ The Humours oí Donegal,” but it isa witty and 
an innocent book, 

The third of this Irish trio is ‘‘When Lint was inthe Bell” by 
Archibald M'‘Tlroy (Belfast: Macaw, Stevenson and Orr). This is a 
wonderfully realistic picture of various grades of social life in a little 
country town in the North of Ireland. The writer understands all 
the phases of feeling in such a community; and he gives some very 





388 The Irish Monthly. 


amusing glimpses of the working of practical Presbyterian theology 
in the rustic middle class. He does not make the slightest allusion 
to priests or Catholic people, but confines himself to the people whom 
he knew, and leaves upon the reader a very remarkable impression 
of truthfulness and reality. 

3. The cantenary associations vf the present year have induced 
Mr. Dugald MacFadyen to set new music to the famous song ‘‘ Who 
Fears to Speak of ’98.”’ A skilful musician has informed us that this 
setting is very effective. The price of the six full size pages of music 
with artistic cover is four shillings, but the piece may be had for 1/6, 
from the Composer, 69 Comely Bank Avenue, Edinburgh. 

4. The Franciscans tn England 1600—1850. By the Rev. Father 
Thaddeus, O.F.M. (London and Leamington: Art and Book 
Compay). 

The history of the Friars Minor in England during the last two 
or three centuries is given in this large volume, by an annalist rather 
than by an historian. The want of system and order is partly atoned 
for by an index of proper names which fills some thirty columns. 
There is a large number of illustrations, chiefly authentic portraits. 
The record is a very edifying one. (See also No. 13). 

5, Messrs. Benziger of New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago, have 
added two new story books to their long list. They are both called 
“Jack Holdreth among the Indians;” and the first page seems to 
indicate that ‘‘ Winnetou, the Apache Knight”’ comes first, and then 
‘The Treasurer of Nugget Mountain,” Though they are edited by 
Marion Ames Taggart, we cannot pretend to have read much of them 
or to have been much impressed by what we read. The publishers 
and editor are a guarantee that the tales are at least innocent; but 
we should like the activity of this enterprising firm to be exercised on 
a better class of work. They have published also under the odd title 
of ‘‘ labiola’s Sisters” the story of St. Pe:petua and other Christian 
heroines martyred at Carthage in the third century. 

6. “ Gladly, Most Gladiy” and other Tales. By Nonna Bright 
(London: Burns and Oates). 

The name of this author we have never seen before. There is a 
great deal of merit in several of these half-dozen stories. The piety 
is sometimes too sentimental, anu religion and theology are dragged 
in now and then a little too violently. The worst of allis the Irish 
story: Miss Bright ought never again to attempt the brogue—it 
makes us laugh at her, when she wants us to laugh with her. But 
she has undoubted literary talent, and her book of stories is far better 
than many similar volumes that are praisea ioudly by the foremost 
reviewers. 








Notes on New Books. 389 


7. These are called ‘‘ Noteson New Booke,” and a book which was 
published in November, 1897, and of which a second edition appeared 
in February, 1898, cannot be called a new work. But we wish to 
secure for some of our readers the advantage of studying Mr. Clement 
Shorter’s ‘‘ Victorian Literature: Sixty Years of Books and Book- 
men.” It is a wonderfully rapid and vivid survey of all that has been 
written in prose and verse in the English language siuce 1837, not 
including the writers of the United States. It is often indeed little 
more than a dictionary written out in sentences; but Mr. Shorter 
contrives to condense a great deal of information and of fairly sound 
criticism into his clear, crisp sentences. The excellent index finds 
out for you at once the page where some specially interesting name 
occurs. Altogether Zruth speaks the truth when it says that this book 
is “a model of the art of putting the greatest number of things in the 
least possible space, in the neatest possible way, and in the handiest 
possible order.” 

8. ‘The Farmer’s Boy,” by Robert Bloomfield, was once a very 
popular poem. A new edition for the use of schools, the first ever 
intended for this special object, has been very skilfully and carefully 
prepared by the Rev. Joseph Darlington, 8.J., Fellow of the Royal 
University of Ireland. The notes and introduction are very clear and 
very interesting. The book has been well brought out by the 
publishers, Messrs. Sealy, Bryers and Walker, Middle Abbey Street, 
Dublin. 

9. The indefatigable publishers, Benzigers Brothers, send us in 
three shilling boxes sets of cards which are called “The Game of 
Quotations from American Catholic Authors,” each card containing 
four or five brief sentences from various books by each of the writers 
—COardinal Gibbons, Miss Quiney, Father Finn, Jr. Brownson, 
M. F. Egan, etc. An explanation of the game is furnished with the 
various sets. A similar game is made up of portraits of the same 
Authors. 

10. A great deal of souna matter is condensed by the Rev. R. 
Courtois into a cheap controversial book published by the Art and 
Book Company of London and Leamington—‘ Christ’s Teaching and 
our Religious Divisions.” May it with the help of God’s grace 
enlighten some souls as to the necessity of unity of faith, and where 
that unity is to be found. 

11. The Catholic publisher, Herder of Freiburg in Germany, 
and St. Louis, Missouri, has issued a fourth edition of ‘‘ Ada Merton,” 
one of the latest of the many successful stories of Father Francis J. 
Finn, 8.J. ; a new edition also (the thirteenth) of the Rev. J, Perry’s 
‘¢ Full Course of Instruction in Explanation of the Cathecism ” edited 


390 The Irish Monthly. 


and adapted to the present wants of schools and private families by 
a Priest of the Mission; also a new edition of Dr. Schuster’s 
‘‘Tllustrated Bible History of the Old and New Testaments ” which 
has been approved of by an immense number of Cardinals and other 
Prelates, and specially adopted as a text-book in the dioceses of 
Kildare, Cloyne and Waterford. Another work issued by the same 
publisher is ‘‘ The Science of the Bible” by the Rev. Martin S. 
Brennan, M.A., who has made the relations of Revelation and 
Modern Science his special subject. Out of twenty-three Chapters, 
Geology, Biology and Anthropology have each three chapters devoted 
to their difficulties, This book will be useful and interesting to a 
wide circle of readers of more than one class. 

12, Among the latest publications of the Catholic Truth Society 
is a shilling volume, ‘ Protestant Belief,” in which Mr. J. Herbert 
Williams, late Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, says that it would 
be a delusion to write of Protestantism now as one might have done 
fifty years ago, and he accordingly tries to expose the present-day 
phases of error. There are also three new penny tracts: Father 
Herbert Lucas, §.J., on the ‘Iron Virgin” of Nuremberg, and 
the Rev. George Bampfield, with a pleasant set of Spanish Legends, 
and a still pleasanter set of “' Talks about Our Lady,” in which Car- 
penter Lynes learns the true Catholic doctrine about the Mother and 
the Son. It is extremely well done. 

13. The Franciscans in England, 1600-1850. By the Rev. Father 
Thaddeus, O.F.M. (London and Leamington; Art and Book Com- 
pany). 

Father Thaddeus, who has already published a “Life of Blessed 
John Forest,” and several contributions to what might be called the 
prose poetry of piety. His present work is a solid volume of nearly 
four hundred pages, giving a minute and authentio history of the 
work of the Friars Minors in England till the middle of the present 
century. The Epilogue— which many will consider too lively for an 
historical work—seems to hold out the promise of a continuation. 
There are many excellent portraits ; and a careful index of names adds 
to the completeness of Futher Thaddeus’ labour of filial love. 

14, St. Anthony, the Saint of the Whole World. Illustrated by en 
and Pencil. Adapted from the best sources by The Rev. Thomas F. 
Ward, Pastor of the Church of St. Charles Borromeo, Brooklyn. 
(Benziger: New York, Chicago, Cincinnati). 

Another tribute to the popularity of St. Anthony of Padua. There 
are many full-page pictures, and the type is only too large and the 
paper too good. But his enthusiastic clients will think nothing too 
good for the saint. 





( 391 ) 


UNITED STILL BY PRAYER.* 


TR E firat place vacant in our home below, 
The first seat filled in our true home above: 
Henceforth our hearts must travel to and fro, 
Keeping intact the circle of our love. 


Our prayers must follow her, although we feel 
(Sweet, patient sufferer !) she is happy now; 
Her young life bore the saint’s and martyr’s seal, 

Surely their diadem now decks her brow. 


Still we must pray. She’ll welcome every thought, 
Then in her turn she'll plead and never rest, 

Till all she loved, safe through Jife’s dangers brought 
Join her once more what time God’s will sees best. 


8. M. 8. 


WINGED WORDS. 


No one is helpless that has God to go to.— Rev. J. Morris, 4 J. 

True art lies in the abandonment of artifice.—Ibn el Ward 

The average man speaks about twelve thousand words a day, 
the average woman about half as many more.— 1 /e Academy. 

It is easy to get on with people who don’t care a straw for 
you: but in intercourse with those whom you love there is often 
difficulty. — Uncle Esek. 

True learning is to know better what we already know.— 
Cocentry Patmore. 

To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. 
—Cardinal Newman. 

If them that was good for nought got lost, and them that was 
little good for wint to find them, there’d be a dale of empty sates 
in chapel of a Sunday mornin’.—Jane Barlow. 


e This little relic of the Author of ‘‘ Songs of Sion’’ comes to us from Cavan. 


392 The Frish Monthly. 


The most perfect abstract of all that is best in the Timaeus 
and Phaedo of Plato, in the Meditations of Des Cartes, in the 
é“ Knowledge of God and Ourselves ” of Bossuet, and in the most 
beautiful chapters in Kant’s Criticism of Practical Reason, is to 
be found in the first pages of the Catechism ; and this Catechism 
is the nourishment of the poor in spirit—the child, the woman, the 
shepherd, the artisan, while the others are addressed to a very few 
individuals of the human race.— Victor Cousin. 

Life has hard knots, but God can untie them.—Aétie O’ Brien. 

I wish I could make money this year out of my heart’s blood. 
The want among the poor people will be awful, I fear.— Zhe same. 

When the rains fall, I feel as if they beat upon my heart. —— 
Another bad year and ruin is inevitable.— The same. 

Thoughtful, religious people wili read holy, good things, but 
touching them would not content me. I should like to cast a 
lasso on the wilder animals. I would lead them with a story of 
human emotions and actions, and then they may read on and 
swallow it all.— Zhe same. 

How few, after all, realize that by seeking first the Kingdom 
of God, all the rest is added.— The same. 

There is as much egotism in concealment as in display, for 
both are done for the same end—to win your good opinion.— The 
same. 

I think both ATALIg and Renz, by Chateaubriand, most objec- 
tionable in the subject matter. To my unsophisticated judgment, 
it is not the wisest way to eulogize purity by painting in flaming 
colours the opposite vice. I should rather adopt the Apostle’s 
principle of not naming such things amongst us.— 7he same. 

I should infinitely prefer that my fingers should be paralyzed 
than that they should write a line of doubtful influence.— 7he 
same. 





AUGUST, 1868. 





ALL ABOUT THE ROBIN. 


HE reader would be amused or shocked if he were told the 
number of years that have passed away since I began to 

pile up a little pyramid of books and papers which I am now 
going to pull down and scatter. These books and papers were 
put together because they each contained some reference to the 
robin; and I am sure that the earliest of them were set apart for 
this purpose many years before the author of the last of them was 
born—namely, Edward J. Tighe, (Junior Grade) who contributes 
to the Castleknock ‘College Chronicle” a very charming paper . 
which takes its text from Wordsworth : 


Art thon the bird whom man loves best— 
The pious bird with ecarlet breast ? 


As a great deal of verse must be quoted, it will be judicious to 
get some of it off my conscience at once. I am sorry not to be 
able to name the author of each piece. Whenever I fail to give 
that information, it is because I do not myself possess it. For 
instance “ The Red Breast of the Robin ” is called “an Irish 
legend ” in Chamber’s Journal, and it bears no signature :— 


Of all the merry little birds that live up in the tree, 
' And carol from the sycamore and chestnut, 
The prettiest little gentleman that dearest is to me 
Is the one in coat of brown and scarlet waistooat. 
Its cockit little robin ! 
And his head he keeps a bobbin’. 
Of all the other pretty fowls 1’d choose him ; 
For he sings so sweetly still, 
Through his tiny, slender bill, 
With a little patch of red upon his bosom. 


Vou. xxvi. No. 302. 29 





394 The Irish Monthly. 


When the frost is in the air and snow upon the ground, 
To other little birdies so bewilderin’, 
Picking up the crumbs near the window he is found, 
Singing Christmas stories to the children; 
Of how two tender babes 
Were left in woodland glades 
By a cruel man who took ’em there to lose ’em ; 
But Bobby saw the crime, 
(He was watching all the time!) 
And he blushed a perfect crimson on his bosom. 


When the changing leaves of autumn around us thiokly fall, 
And everything seems sorrowful and saddening, 
Robin may be heard on the corner of a wall 
Singing what is solacing and gladdening. 
And sure, from what I've heard, 
He’s God’s own little bird, 
And sings to those in grief just to amuse ’em 
- But once he sat forlorn 
On a oruel Crown of Thorn, 
And the blood it stained his pretty little bosom. 


I am not even able to name the periodical to which “ Ned of 
the Hill” (who was he?) contributed the ‘“ Robineen.” He 
prefixes to it this note :—‘‘ There is a very beautiful legend told 
onthe Welsh Mountains, for the matter of that, I believe it is told 
throughout the whole Catholic world, to the effect that when our 
Saviour was being crucified for our salvation, a robin, observing 
the red blood flowing from His wounds, went to gently wipe away 


the stains with its little breast. This legend accounts for the 
robin’s red breast.” 


Some reader may need to be warned that the Welsh Mountains 
are not in Wales but in County Kilkenny. 


The blithest, and the sweetest, 
The mildest, the discreetest, 
The bird I love the dearest is the little Robineen. 
Though in the town he nestles, 
Yet he soft music whistles, 
As sweetly as I heard him up in Carrickshock boreen. 


As days get a little colder, 
He gets a little bolder, 
And bravely comes to pick the crumbs that from my table fall— 
’Tis joy to hesr the singing 
Of lark when skyward winging, 
And sweet it is to list the thrush, in springtime, at Lookhall 


All about the Robin. 895 


But little brown-eyed Robin, 
He puts my pulses throbbin’, 
So gentle, kind and sweet he is, he sets my heart aglow, 
My mem’ry’s still caressing 
The dear, dead mother’s blessing, 
I heard poured upon him in the golden Long Ago. 


She said that 1 should love him, 
“ For the Blessed God above him 
Had painted o’er his tiny breast with drops of Precious Blood !’’ 
Since then, whene’er I ponder, 
Of him I grow the fonder— 
The little bird that so loved God can nothing be but good. 


The Breton legend—but indeed it is by no means confined to 
Brittany—to which the first of these poems alludes in its last two 
lines is told at full length by an unknown “I. J.P.” in The 
Animal World of January, 1894. I told it myself long ago in 
dignified Spenserian stanzas called “ The First Red Breast” 
published in The Month and reprinted in the little book of 
“é Verses Irish and Catholic” called “ Erin.” But “The Robin’s 
Story ” is told more naturally in the simpler metre of the 
following lines — | 

My home was in an Eastern land, 
In ages long since past ; 

Where in the fields, all bright with flowers, 
Tall palms their shadows cast. 


One of the creatures of God’s hand, 
His happy, living things, 
_ I poured my love in songs of praise 
To Him who gave me wings. 


Full joyous in my dress of brown, 
I lived from sorrow free, 

Till o’er my way a shadow fell 
In wondrous mystery. 


Without the city gate, one day, 
Amid a surging crowd, 

Whose angry voices rend the air, 
With clamour fierce and loud, 


I saw One toil with fainting steps, 
Beneath the noontide heat : 

And drawn by strange, resistless force, 
I fluttered to His feet. 


It scarce‘could be that“mortal men 
Had‘doomed their.God to death, 

Who crowned:them, His most perfect work, 
With gift of living breath. 


396 The Irish Monthly. 


And yet methinks, no other face 
Could wear the look He wore, 

Who, up the way of grief, that day, 
A orcss to Calvary bore. 


He seemed a glance of love to turn 
Upon me as 1 flew, 

And spite of nll His wounds and shame, 
My Maker then I knew. 


I saw him hang with outstretched arms, 
Uplifted on the tree, 

While of the crowd that pressed around, 
None came His friond to be. 


God gave me not a soul like man ; 
I could not understand 

What held Him there whose word was law 
To all the angel-band. 


I only felt, in my bird's heart, 
A longing anguish-fraught 
To shed forth all my little life, 

Could that avail Him aught, 


This might not be: yet on His brow 
I marked the thorn-spikes press, 

And strove that He, through my poor aid, 
Might have one pang the less. 


With painful toil, at length I drew 
One thorn from that sad crown, 

While blood-drops flowing from His wounds 
Dyed red my feathers brown. 


A blesséd guerdon crowned the deed 
My feeble strength had done, 

For the bright crimson robe I wear 
Was in His service won. 


For this my ruddy breast I prize, 
And count it treasure rare. 

And hold myself a bird most blest, 
This sign for Him to bear. 


Before falling back on the prose of our subject, it may be well 

to give the foregoing condensed into a French sonnet as we find 
-it in the volume of the A/manach du Sonnet for the year 1876, 
where the mysterious and Italian-looking sign ature attached to it 





Alt about the Robin. 897 


is M do Valori F Rustichelli. Are the contracted titles Marquis 
and Prince? The princely Marquis thus sonnetizes “ Le Rouge- 
Gorge ” :— 


Quand Jésus gravissait les pentes du Calvaire, 
Ployant, pour nous sauver, sous le poids do sa croix, 
Un tout petit oiseau voltigeait sur le bois 

Od le grand sacrifice allait bientdt se faire. 


Cependant, d’ Israel la horde populaire 

Suivait, en se riant du fils du roi des rois; 

Les disciples cachaient des larmes sous leurs doigts, 
Et les femmes priaient en portant le suaire ; 


Mais, lui, tout en planant a l’entour du Sauveur, 
Emu de voir souffrir cette téte divine, 
Fit tant, qu’ il arracha de son front une épine. 


Or, la goutte de sang qu ’y laissa le Seigneur, 
— Le rouge-gorge ainsi le raconte au bocage— 
Tombant sur lui, resta depuis sur son plumage. 


With two more lines, and lines much shorter, George Doane 
may tell us the same tale over again before we pass to another 
branch of the subject :— 


Sweet Robin, I have heard them say 
That thou wert there upon the day 
That Christ was crowned in oruel scorn, 
And bore away one bleeding thorn ; 
That so the blush upon thy breast 

In shameful sorrow was imprest, 

And thence thy genial sympathy 

With our redeemed humanity. 


Sweet Robin, would that I might be 
Bathed in my Saviour’s Blood like thee; 
Bear in my breast, whate’er the loss, 
The bleeding blazon of the Cross ; 

Live ever, with thy loving mind, 

In fellowship with human kind; 

And take my pattern still from thee, 

In gentleness and constanoy. 


In sharp contrast with all the poetry we have quoted about 
the Robin are the prose opinions of Mr. Josh Billings, who tells 
us that “the robin has a red breast. They have a plaintiff song, 
and sing as though they waz sorry for sumthin. They are 
natifis of the Northern States, but they go South to Winter. 





398 The Irish Monthly. 


They git their name for their grate ability for robin a cherry 
tree. They can also rob a currant bush fust rate, and are smart on 
a gooseberry. Ifa robin kant find ennything else tew eat, they 
aint too fastidious tew eat a ripe strawberry. They build their 
nests out of mud and straw, and lay four eggs that are speckled. 
Four young robins in a nest, that are just hatched out, and still 
on the half shell, are alwuz as ready for dinner az a nuzeboy is. 
If ennybody goes near their nest, their mouths all fly open at 


~ once, so that you kan see clear down to their palates. If it wasn’t 


for the birds, I suppose we should all be eaten up by the cater- 
pillars and snakes, but I have thought it wouldn't be ennything 
more than common politeness for the robins tew let us have now 
and then just one of our own cherries tew see how they taste.” 
Yet not only the facetious Mr. Billings, but grave scientific 
writers, give poor robin a bad character. Father Gerard, 8.J., 
who is even more at home with the ways of birds than he is with 
the real details of the so-called Gunpowder Plot, says hard things 
against the Sylvia Rubecula in “ Man and Beast,” one of a 
delightful series of articles, in The Month, March 1896. But 
perhaps the fury that he shows against some of his own species is 
due to the excess of his love for another individual] of the same. 
A contributor to a magazine that is long since dead gathered 
together a good deal of the folk-lore of the Redbreast. This 
anonymous writer may be credited with all that follows till our 
next poetical extract. He tells us that in Wales children are 
taught by their elders that far, far away there is a land of woe, 
darkness, spirits of evil, and fire, and that day by day does the 
little bird bear in his bill a drop of water to quench the flame, and 
so near to the burning stream does he fly, that his dear little 
feathers are soorched, and hence he is named “ Bron rhuddyn,” 
that is, redbreast. The robin returns from the land of fire, and 
therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than his brother 
birds. He shivers in the wintry blast; he is hungry, and so he 
chirps before your door. Oh! my child, then in gratitude throw 
a few crumbs to poor Robin Redbreast. The Yorkshire country 
people have a real horror of killing a robin, and with good reason ; 
for they say, and firmly believe, that if a robin is killed one of the 
cows belonging to the person will give bloody milk. The same 
superstition is likewise prevalent in Switzerland. The robin 
there alone of all birds, enjoys immunity from the ready gun of 








All about the Robin. 399 


the Alpine herdsman, who believes the same tradition with our 
own John Brodie, of Yorkshire, respecting the cows, should a robin 
be killed on his pastures. In France, likewise, the robin meets 
with mercy at the hands of the sportsman, who is generally any- 
thing but sentimental; while the Breton peasant holds him in 
positive veneration. Mr. Chambers, in his “Book of Days,” 
says, “The Robin is very fortunate in the superstitions which 
attach to him. ‘ ‘lhere’s a divinity doth hedge a robin,’ which 
keeps him from innumerable harms.” In Suffolk there is a say- 
ing, “ You must not take robins’ eggs: if you do, you will have 
your legs broken! and, accordingly, those eggs on long strings, 
of which boys are so prouJ, are never to be seen in that country ; 
and one that kills a robin is sure to be unlucky.” For “ He that 
hurts robin or wren will never prosper, boy or man.” ‘ How 
badly you write,” was one day said to a boy in a parish school: 
your hand shakes so, that you can’t hold your pen steadily ? 
Have you been running?” “ No,” replied the lad, “it always 
shakes since a robin died in my hand; it is said, if a robin dies 
in any one’s hand, that hand will always shake.” It is said of 
redbreast that, if he finds the dead body of any rational creature, 
he will cover over the face at least, if not the whole body, with 
leaves. The burial covering, with leaves, of the children in the 
wood, and the play of ‘‘Cymbeline,’’ are supposed to have given 
birth to the tradition; but this charitable office, however, which 
these productions have ascribed to Robin, is ot very early date, 
for in Thomas Johnson’s “ Curnucopia’’ (1596) it is related that, 
“ Robin, if he finds a man or woman dead, will cover all his face 
with mosse, and some thinke that if the body should remaine un- 
buried, that he would cover the whole body also.” 

We promised to mark the end of our extract from the old 
magazine by inserting a layer of verse. We shall take it from a 
magazine that is not old nor likely to grow old and deorepid, but 
sure to be always young and fresh. Why were not at least in- 
itials signed to these lines in “ The Stonyhurst Magazine ?”’ 


Robin sang his tiny song 
In the holly tree ; 
True, ’twas neither loud nor long, 
Many another sang more strong, 
But ’twas all for me. 


400 The Irish Monthly. 


Withered leaves bestrewed the ground, 
Scattered everywhere, 

Still for all the thorns around, 

Born, it seeméd, Lut to wound, 
What did Robin care? 


Happy in his regal state, 
Clad in regal red, 

On he sang with joy elate, 

Sang to me and to his mate, 
Bidding care be sped. 


Sang of his existence sweet, 
Sweet to be and do; 
Eager every heart to greet 
That in harmony would beat 
And be happy too. 
Then I laid aside my woe 
'Neath that holly tree ; 
"Mid the dead leaves laid it low, — 
Little Robin, didst but know 
All thou'st been to me! 


As another of the things oreditable to the subject of my 
discourse (or excursus) I like to notice that, among the many 
names that Charles Dickens weighed and balanced before fixing 
on Household Words as the title of his famous periodical, one was 
“The Robin.” Also, into the third edition of his famous “ Elegy ” 
Gray crushed a new stanza (now omitted) telling how 


é“ The Redbreast loves to build and warble there, 
Aud little footsteps lightly press the ground.’’ 


But in fact the Robin comes in everywhere. John Lyly at 
the end of the sixteenth century exclaimed :— | 


“ Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat 
Poor robin redbreast tunes his note! ””— 


and at the end of the eighteenth century Edward Lysaght sang :— 


‘¢ The bird of all birds that I love the best 
Is the Robin that in the churchyard makes his nest, 
For he seems to watch Kathleen, hops lightly o’er Kathleen, 
My Kathleen O’ More."’ 





But poor Kathleen was not there; she had died, we trust, in 
God’s grace, and she was with God. Thomas Irwin more 
acourately in the same context speaks of the dear “dust”’ near 
which the robin sings. 





Ali about the Robin. 401 


Amid the ivy on the tomb 
The Robin sings his winter song, 
Full of cheerful pity ; 
Deep grows the evening gloom, 
Dim spreads the snow along! 
And sounds the slowly tolling bell from the silent city. 
Sing, sweet Robin, sing 
To One that lies below ; 
Few hearts are warm above the snow 
As that beneath thy wing ; 
So sing, sweet, sing 
All about the coming Spring. 


When summer, with hay-scented breath, 
Shall come the mountains over, 
Sing, Robin, through the valley, 
Above the tufts of flowering heath, 
And o’er the honied olover, 
Where many a bronzed‘and humming bee 
shall voyage musically ; 
Sing, brown spirit, sing 
Each summer evening 
When I am far away ; 
I know not one I'd wish so near 
The dust I love as thou, sweet dear; 
So sing, sweet, sing 
Still, still about the coming Spring. 


But it is quite impossible to quote all the Laureates of the 
Robin, who has himself been called the Laureate of Christmas 
Even avoiding the tributee that may be found in more or less 
familiar collections, we can only refer to the “Legend of the 
Robin ” at page 152 of Poems of the Past (Dublin: M. H. Gill 
and Son) by “ Moi-méme”’—who ought to have allowed us to 
know her as a Cork Presentation Nun at least if not by her whole 
name. Mr. Louis H. Victory tells the same story much more 
briefly as we find him quoted at page 15 of the first volume 
of Paul's “ Modern Irish Poets” ” . and so likewise does Sir John 
Croker Barrow ;— 

A brown-winged Robin, ’mid the snow, 
With crimson vest between his wings, 


Sits on a holly-branch, and sings 
To redbreast berries down below. 


That crimson which thy breast adorns, 

Oh, tell us, Robin, can it be 

That that same crimson came to thee 
From Christ, and from His crown of thorns ? 


402 The Irish Monthiy. 


“ [drew a thorn from out His head, 
A drop of blood came in its place; 
It did not fall upon His face, 
It fell upon my breast instead.”’ 


Oh, Robin, when our faith is dim, 
May that blood-stain upon thy breast 
From thorn-crown on His forehead prest, 
Draw back again our hearts to Him. 

In Lady Gilbert’s ‘* Wicked Woods of Tobereevil ” (which 
has recently re-appeared in a very convenient edition), the 
terrible old miser, Simon, is prowling round the hedges in search 
of an economical meal. ‘“ He was standing close by the cottage 
of a poor tenant whose field he had been gleaning, and as he tore 
the bird’s-nest a boy sprang suddenly forward. 

‘Ah, sir! Don’t tear the robin’s nest, sir! Indeed it is the 
robin’s; I saw her fly out this morning.” 

é Well, you young rascal. A useless, thieving bird ! ”” 

“ Oh, sir; don’t do that, sir! The robin that bloodied his 
breast, sir, when he was tryin’ to pick the nails out o’ the Saviour’s 
feet! ”’ 

The child looked up as he spoke with a face full of earnest- 
ness and horror, It was as if he had been begging for the life 
of a little human playfellow. 

But our poets have laid sufficient stress on that particular 
legend, whereas we only know one who is inspired by the Welsh 
version of the story—the American Quaker, John Greenleaf 
Whittier :— : 

My old Welsh neighbour over the way 
Crept slowly out in the sun of spring, 


Pushod from her ears the locks of grey, 
And listened to hear the robin sing. 


Her grandson, playing at marbles, stopped, 
And, cruel in sport as boys will be, 

Tossed a stone at the bird, who hopped 
From bough to bough in the apple-tree. 


‘‘ Nay!’ said the grandmother, “' have you not heard, 
My poor bad boy, of the fiery pit, 

And how, drop by drop, this merciful bird 
Carries the water that quenches it? 


“ He brings cool dew in his little bill, 
And lets it fall on the souls of sin ; 

You can see the mark on his red breast atill 
Of fires that scorch as he drops it in. 





All about the Robin. 408 


“ My poor Bren Rhvddyn!* my breast-burned bird, 
Singing so sweetly from limb to limb, 

Very dear to the Heart of our Lord 
Ia he who pities the lost like him !”” 


“ Amen!” I said to the beautiful myth ; 

“ Sing, bird of God, in my heart as well; 
Each good thought is a drop wherewith 

To cool and leasen the fires of hell. 


‘ Prayers of love like rain-drops fall, 
Tears of pity are cooling dew, 

And dear to the Heart of our Lord are all 
Who suffer like Him in the good they do!” 


The only annotation we shall permit ourselves on these verses 
is that the Hell whose fires ean be cooled and lessened in this 
fashion is not Hell but Purgatory—one of the most easily 
believed of all controverted dogmas. 

‘There is a Ruskin Anthology compiled by an American, 
William Sloan Kennedy, who prefixes a very apposite motto 
from Ruskin’s own Fors Clavigera. ‘I have always thought that 
more true force of persuasion might be obtained by rightly 
choosing and arranging what others have said than by painfully 
saying it again in one’s own way.” I have been disappointed 
that in this selection the only reference to the Robin is this — 


“Tf you think of it, you will find one of the robin’s very chief 
ingratiatory faculties is his dainty and delicate movement—his 
footing it featly here and there. Whatever prettiness there may 
be in his red breast, at his brightest he can always be outshone by a 
brickbat. But if he is rationally proud of anything about him, I 
should think a robin must be proud of his legs. Hundreds of 
birds have longer and more imposing ones, but for rea] neatness, 
finish, and precision of action, commend me to his fine little 
ankles, and fine little feet.” 


Perhaps somewhere else Ruskin regards the Robin from a 
higher point of view, as Katharine Tynan does in her “ Autumn 
Song,”’ which perhaps has not been gathered from the “ Catholic 
Fireside ” into any of her volumes.t : 

e The Welsh name for the robin, meaning “ red-breast.’’ 


+ Yos; I find it at page 153 of “ Shamrooks’’ (1887), but greatly altered 
and renamed '“' Robin’s Faithfulness.’’ 


404 The Irish Monthly. 


Robin sitting and sunning his breast 
Singeth a song unweary, 

Though the pale sun had dropt low in the west. 
Robin, Robin, my dearie ! 

Singeth when birdies are warm in the nest. 


This bright birdie heedeth not cold, 
Though the North wind is blowing ; 

Swayeth with brave eyes merry and bold, 
And his bonny breast showing, 

The raised throat pouring its rain of gold. 


She, too, calls the robin “ the birdie I love the best.” Not to 
the blackbird, or thrush, or swallow—these are all named, but 
not to any of these :— 


“To my Robin the praise belong, 
And the love be given ! 
This is the message rings in his song: 
‘1n earth or in Heaven, 
The day shal! dawn, though the night is long." 


‘*O bonny redbreast singing with glee 
In the frosty gloaming ! 
Fair is the hope that you bring to me 
Of a new day’s coming. 
A golden star in the west I see ! 


“ And I thank God for your song and you. 
Now, good-bye, dearie ! 
You have been singing the long day through, 
And the gold throat grows weary ! 
Robin home to his warm nest flew.’’ 


Another Irish poet, Dr. John Todhunter, addresses a stately 
ode to the Robin, whom he hails as “‘chorister supreme, red- 
breasted bard that still such lyrics ripe canst dauntlessly outpour 
—brave Christmas ocaroller,” nay, though he makes no other 
allusions to our old legends, he apostrophises him as “ bird of 
Christ.” 

In Christina Rossetti’s poems there are many references to the 
robin redbreast, such as this in the opening of “ The First Spring 
Day ” :— 

“ I wonder if the sap is stirring yet, 
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate, 
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun, 
And crocus fires are kindling one by one. 
Sing, robin, sing ! 
I still am sore in doubt concetning Spring.’’ 





All about the BRobsn. : 406 


In “The Key-note” the second verse runs thus :'— 


“ Yet Robin sings through Winter's rest, 
When bushes put their berries‘on ; 
When they their ruddy jewels don, 
He sings out of a ruddy breast ; 
The hips and haws and ruddy breast 
“Make one spot warm where snowflakes lie, 
They break and cheer the unlovely rest 
Of Winter’s pause—and why not IP” 


The Earl of Southesk has some pleasant rhymes beginning 
with “ Bird of red bosom and delicate beak,” and ending with 
é Thou sweet little, dear little, round little thing.” 

But we cannot quote everything. We refrain with difficulty 
from William Allingham’s winsome lyrio, with its chorus :— 


“ Robin, Robin, Redbreast, O Robin dear ! 
And a crumb of bread for Robin, his little heart to cheer.’’ 


But we trust that our readers know and love the true poet who 
sang such a sweet farewell to the winding shores of Erne, and 
whose memorial fitly adorns the old bridge of his beloved Bally- 
shannon 

Here we had ended ; but, after strenuously resisting it so long, 
we at the last moment yield to the temptation of giving our own 
rhymed version of ‘“‘ The First Redbreast, a Legend of Good 
Friday ” :— 


A quaint and childish story, often told, 
And worth, perchance, the telling, for it steals 
Through rustic Christendom ; and boyhood, bold 
And almost pitiless in pastime, feels 
The lesson its simplicity conceals. 
Hence kind Tradition, to protect from wrong 
A gentle tribe of choristera, appeals 
To this ancestral sacredness, so long 
In grateful memory shrined, and now in grateful song. 


One Friday's noon a snowy-breasted bird 

Was fiying in the darkness o’er a steep 

Nigh to Judea’s capital, where stirred 

The rabble’s murmur sullenly and deep. 

Far had it sailed since sunrise, and the sweep 

Of its brown wing grew languid, and it longed 

To rest awhile on some green bough, and peep 

Around the mass that on the hill-side thronged, 
Aa if to learn whereto such pageunt stern belonged. 


406 The Irish Monthly. 


The robin whitebreast spied a Cross of wood 
That lifted o’er the din its gory freight. 
Beneath, the sorrow-stricken Mother stood, 
And silent wailed her Child’s less cruel fate. 
But lest she mourn all lone and desolate, 
Has reason whispered to that fluttering breast, 
Whom, Whom, on Whom those fiends their fury sate? - 
Mark how it throbs with pity, nor can rest, 
Till it has freed its Lord, or tried its little best. 


And see, with tiny beak it fiercely flies, 

To wrench the nails that bind tho Captive fast. 

Ah! vain, all vain those eager panting cries, 

That quivering agony! It sinks at last, 

Foiled in the generous strife, aud glares aghast 

To see the thorn-crowned Head droop faint and low, 

Mute the pale lips, the gracious brow o’ercast ; 

While from the shattered palms the red drops flow, 
Staining the pious bird’s smooth breast of speckless snow. 


That snow thus ruddied fixed the tinge of all 

The after-race of robins; and ’tis said, 

Heaven's fondest care doth on the robin fall, 

In memory of that scene on Calvary sped. 

Hence, urchins rude, in quest of plunder led 

To prowl round hedges, never dare to touch 

The woe white-speckled eggs or mossy bed 

Of “God's own bird,” So from the spoiler’s clutch 
Would you, God’s child, be free? Ah! feel for Jesus much. 


In mosaics of this kind, alternate layers of prose and verse, 
one is supposed to end with a little streak of prose, which in the 
present case may confess that the foregoing Spenserian stanzas 
date back to the year 1859, and a lonely lane near Limerick, 
leading to a well called Ballintubber. ‘‘Thus do we span the 
chasm of centuries, and link the present with the past ’—as 
Bishop David Moriarty said in Limerick Cathedral about the 
same time at the Consecration of Dr. George Butler, who wore 
the mitre of Dr. Cornelius O’Dea, dead some centuries. I take a 
pleasure in bringing in such good Irish names of places and 
persons, apropos des bottes, by hook or by orook, per fas et nefas. 


M. R. 











( 407 ) 


GLIMPSES IN THE WEST. 
II. 


I: is a thing to grieve for that our country, which possesses 

scenery so beautiful that it needs we should see the places most 
favoured in this respect of other lands to value fully Nature’s 
largesse towards our own, should continue to want what others 
possess and treasure, a literature associated with the haunts we 
love. The birth of what may be called the landscape school of 
poets in England a century ago has nothing of a place in the 
literature of Ireland. The study of the Phenomenology of 
Nature, reduced to an accurate science in the writings of Ruskin, 
began even earlier than this century in the writings of Gray and 
Cowper; but Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Southey, Shelley, 
and Coleridge form the great group of literary painters who 
opened the windows of men’s minds to the glories that encom- 
passed them from dawn to sunset, sweeping away the conventional 
landscape of the so-called classic school of poetry, as De Wint, 
Girtin, Vopley, Fielding, and the rest of the modern school of 
landscape painters, culminating in the gigantic genius of Turner, 
destroyed for ever the conventional classicisms of Olaude, the 
Poussin, and of Wilson. And in England the work goes on to 
the present day. What Scott did for Scotland in the early part 
of the century, William Black has done even better, so far as the 
mere painting of landscape goes, in these latter days. What the 
lake poets did for Cumberland in seizing the moods of nature and 
facts which go to express them, Tennyson did for Devon and 
for Cornwall; and “0,” in The Delectable Duchy, and R. D. Black- 
more, in Lorna Doone, make the haunts of the west almost as 
vivid to us when we read of them as when we see them. We 
must confess that, whilst this great movement was growing and 
maturing in England, its light scarcely touched the pages of 
Irish literature. The reason is not far to seek; though it is 
scarcely well to search for it too urgently here. No gentle 
musings over speed-well blue or lesser celadine, no marking how 
the cloud shadows lay blue upon the mountain sides in the still 
warmth of summer noon, nor how the shadow of the tall pine 





408 The Irish Monthly. 


traced itself faintly on the greensward at sunset, could content 
the men who saw their altars desecrated, and their country 
withering away in famine or despair. These Irish writers seem 
rather to have turned away from the sight of their country’s 
loveliness where Nature’s largesse of beauty seemed only as the 
garlands on a victim. Like the visions of water and of food 
which haunt the minds of starving men, they mostly sang in 
delirium of rushing steeds and armed hosts never to be theirs, 
and, substituting rhetoric for the true lyrical form in their blind- 
ness to " the rose of far sight beauty,” the literary value of their 
work too often became as futile as the blown froth by the sea 
shore.* Yet now and again, in those desperate times a voice 
withdrawn from the turmoil and the fray, perhaps from a wrecked 
life too weak to fight, fading in sorrow and disease, like Mangan, 
or like Fergusson, rich in Celtic scholarship, or Aubrey de Vere, 
rich in culture and benevolence, takes up a strain fresh with the 
coolness of the breeze from off the mountain side, and clear with 
the light of dawn. For, though late in coming, for us the day 
has broadened in the east; and from sea cliff, lake, and mountain 
pass, Dowden has given the language landscape sonnets which 
Wordsworth could not excel; and William Yeats, if he will only 
forget his Indian visions, can reach the heart of the weird mystic- 
ism in Irish scenes as none other except Shelley could reach it; 
and the dying sunset on the salt pools of the haunted marshes by 
the sea, or the sunlight on the uplands of the Dublin hills, with 
the bleating of the lambs and the growing choir of nesting-birds 
in spring, make the poetry of Katharine Tynan and of Rosa Mul- 
holland akin to that of Christina Rossetti. Yet still Ireland lacks 
her novelist and writer of romance. If Gerald Griffin, instead of 
writing futile verse, and struggling for literary life in London 
smoke, had cultivated at home in the midst of the scenes of his 
youth a sense of literary form and proportion, Ireland might now 
be able to point to a genius which would rival Soott; but to-day 
it would seem as if, under better conditions, the cloak of a great 
romanocist just dead had fallen on the shoulders of William Yeats, 
and Ireland may yet possess the successor to Robert Louis 
Stevenson. The peculiar character of Irish landscape depends so 
much upon its atmosphere that it is confessedly difficult to paint it 
in prose; yet of late it has been admirably done by Rosa 


* William Yeats. The Celtic Twilight. 


Glimpses in the West. 409 


Mulholland (Lady Gilbert), in many of her stories, notably, The 
Hungry Death, and by the Hon. Emily Lawless in Hurrish; and 
one can only wish that the character drawing of the latter was 
one half as true. But as yet, so far as I know, no Irish writer has 
succeeded so entirely in this respect as Froude did in The 7wo 
Chieftains of Dunboy ; or as Mr. William Black in Shandon Bells. 
His painting of the scenery round and about Bantry Bay in this 
novel can never be excelled; it stands as a model for ever of 
what is best in this portion of a writer’s art. 

Those who have read Lorna Doone, in many ways the finest 
romance in the language, turn to North Devon and the borders of 
Somerset to see with their eyes the savage might of the scenery 
go vividly painted in the book. It is amusing to witness the 
tourist’s disappointment when he finds himself by the Bagworthy 
river and in the Doone Valley. It is impossible to conceive any- 
thing more tame than the reality from which Blackmore has 
taken his materials, and which he has invested with such stupen- 
dous grandeur. The Doone Valley, where the remnants of the 
Doones’ houses still exist as a few ruined hut foundations, half- 
hidden in bracken, lies in a shallow cup surrounded by gently 
rising hills, possessing none of the savage force of outline to be 
found in auy granite-crowned Tor on Dartmoor. The mighty 
waterslide of the Bagworthy, up which Jan Ridd waded at the 
risk of life and limb on his visits to Lorna, does not exist. When 
we ask for it, we are shown, with due solemnity, a tiny glen down 
which a full brook rushes, which can be stepped across at any 
part of its course, and which, in the centre of the glen, slips over 
a waterslide about four feet high. This little rivulet, set in a 
wood of stunted oaks which lean across it and make a tender 
darkness over its course, is really the funs ef origo of Mr. Black- 
more’s finest piece of imagination. You cannot walk upright on 
the path beside the water because of the low-hanging boughs; 
yet Tennyson reminds us how the fly crawling upon the window- 
glass “ may seem the black ox on the distant plain.” Sketch this 
waterfall, and paint a diminutive Jan Ridd wading up the current, 
and you have accomplished what Mr. Blackmore has done. You 
will be shewn the Doone gates at the entrance to the valley—but 
they are nothing, or might be anything—the terrible double 
cavern through which the Bagworthy river thundered in darkness 
existed only in Blackmore’s imagination. The truth is that in 

Vou. xxwz. No 302 30 





410 The Irish Monthly. 


painting his landscapes in this work Mr. Blackmore found his 
materials lower down, in the far grander gorge and precipice 
scenery round and about Lynmouth, and, Turner-like, he absorbed 
all the elements of their savage grandeur, and heaped them up 
round and about the outlaw’s stronghold. I doubt if, in the life 
of its author, any one book has so impressed itself on a locality as 
this one has: the sexton who shewed us the old church at Oare 
pointed out the window through which Carver Doone fired the 
shot which laid Lorna a lifeless bride in the arms of her husband. 
I refrained from telling him that I thought the ocourrence was 
apocryphal, because I felt it would be useless to do so. Lorna 
and Jan Ridd are very living personages at Oare and Bagworthy ; 
and well they may be, seeing how they contribute to the living of 
their descendants. The road to the Bagworthy and the Doone 
country climbs up the edge of the precipices of the Valley of the 
Lyn—a fine piece of engineering; but, when the Doones rode 
home from Lynmouth, it was by a rougher way—the rock-strewn 
path which follows the torrent beneath the leaning oliffs of the 
gorge, through which it thunders and roars over waterfalls and 
between gigantic rocks, beneath mighty oaks and elms, moss- 
covered and ivy-clad with the age of centuries. The beauty of 
all the streams of Devon is focussed on this one river, and I pity 
the man who visits it for a day and leaves it without a pang. It 
is the varying character of the scenery which makes the place 
unique. It reaches fully in its towering headlands the complete 
grandeur which Dartmoor scenery just misses, and in its deep 
gorge a luxuriance of vegetation and variety of sylvan growth 
which Lydford does not possess. I do not know to what it is due, 
but the atmospherio conditions in North Devon give a tone-power 
to the light which lifts every colour to its highest note of brilliance, 
a glory which must be seen and felt, and is not to be desoribed. 
The Dido and Aineas of Turner in the National Gallery is the 
only picture which renders fully this power of sunlight under 
certain rare conditions, so far as | know. I have never seen such 
brilliant mosses as those which clothe the boulders and tree trunks 
of this gorge, the ivy which climbs the stems is full of varied 
tones of green, and the growth of ferns which spring from evéry 
orevioe on the red rooks of the cliffs outrivals Killarney. You 
can climb up the stream’s banks for miles, always rising higher 
into the level of the moors, yet always the sheer precipices tower 








Glimpses in the West. 411 


on either side, crowned with the brown peat and heather of the 
mountains which roll away above them. Once the stream opens 
out into a quiet river in an amphitheatre of mountains, and again 
the gorge closes in with darker and more savage grandeur, and 
lessening woodland, where the torrent leaps and boils between 
cliffs four hundred feet high, until at last you face a mountain 
wall down which it pours in its first rush from the levels of 
Exmoor. These were the elements of the scenery in which Mr. 
Blackmore steeped his imagination before he wrote his romance, 
and with which, with poetic licence, he recreated the tamer scenery 
of the Doone Valley. 

Linton overlooking Lynmouth has place in his book, the weird 
desolation of “ The Valley of the Rocks” being a fit abode for 
the witch Dame Meldrum; it was here, whilst consulting her, 
Jan Ridd witnessed the duel between the goat and the wether on 
the sheer edges of the Castle Rock, the finest single sea cliff 
in England. Blackmore describes this scenery with superb 
power: and, if my readers will refer to it, we may bid good-bye 
to Lorna Doone. 

There is a chasm in a headland overlooking the Bristol 
Channel which encloses a haunt unlike anything else which the 
world contains. It is stange to find in England a dwelling place 
where the elements of modernity have never found a footing, and 
where all things are as they might have been in the middle ages, 
But, apart from its old-world atmosphere, one would be inclined 
to believe that, from the day when the first colonists of Olovelly 
built their cottages until now, the spirits who lean forward to 
watch over the beauties of this earth, determined that here at 
least was an abiding place for them for ever. You leave-the car 
which takes the mails from Bideford, after a drive of seven miles, 
at the gates of the “ Hobby Drive ”—a woodland park on the 
brow of the cliffs, and having walked through a winding road 
beneath towering elms, limes, and sycamores, with exquisite breaks 
in the forest, which frame vignettes of sapphire sea and sheer head- 
lands, their bases fringed forever with the snow-white border of the 
shifting sea foam, you come suddenly in a turn of the road upon 
an open space on the summit of the cliffs, and seven hundred feet 
below you, and a mile away, the fairy harbour of Clovelly lies 
sheltered in the curve of its headland, and, rising almost sheer 
from the water’s edge the white sunlit walls of its houses, shim- 





412 The Irish Monthly. 


mering through the blue glamour of their smoke, climb tier upon 
tier up the cleavage of the wooded gorge from which it takes its 
name. Beyond the near headland of warm sandstone which 
shelters it rises the marble white peak of Gallantry Bower, the 
loveliest cliff in England. The warm creamy pallor of this 
beautiful mass of limestone puts to shame the dead white chalk of 
the Shakspere cliff at Dover. Its tone in the sunshine of morning 
against the faint opalescence of the summer sna is at once the 
delight and despair of artists, and from the lofty eminence on 
which we stand the sea line rising high above it melts into the 
blue haze of the sky, an the ghost of Lundy Island hangs 
suspended as it were between this world and the next. From 
here to Bideford, and in and out by bay and headland, is the 
land of Kingsley’s Westward Ho! the work which just missed 
literary greatness through its blatant Protestantism, and its 
hysterical malevelance of attack against the Church. When one 
reads this book and sees that the mind of Kingsley wae large 
enough to recognise how the conduct of England’s defence 
against the Armada of Spain rested in the hands of the first 
Catholic of England, the head of the Arundels, Lord High 
Admiral and Duke of Norfolk, with what complete devotion and 
self-forgetfulness the duty was achieved, and how, in spite of the 
bitter persecution to which the Government had subjected their 
religion, the Catholics flocked to his standard, and forgot every 
wrong in their sense of loyalty to the throne, one would think 
that the same mind could distinguish the fierce racial and poli- 
tical rivalry, irrespective of religion, in which lay the roots of 
the animosity of Spain. It only needed two nations in those 
days armed for a struggle to the death for the mastery of the 
seas and the keys of the Eldorado of the west, and, though they 
might be both children of the so-called Reformation, their hatred 
would be as deep and bitter. To read Kingsley one would think 
that the “ merrie England ” of which he writes was an Island of 
Saints newly created, where the stake and the torture chamber 
were unknown, where the printing of the Bible had produced 
everlasting peace and justice; not a country which had but 
lately adopted a creed subversive of the faith of its fathers, not 
through conviction, but as a political subterfuge, whose methods 
of persuasion towards the “ heretic” were certainly no better, if 
they were no worse, than those of the Spaniard, and who burned 


Glimpses in the Weet. 413 


“ witches’ for the delectation of her village children on puerilities 
of evidence and methods of “justice” of which the Holy Office 
would be the foremost to sternly denounce, notwithstanding the 
miasma of false science which clouded the understandings of the 
best intellects in those days. One cannot read the writings of 
Raleigh and of Bacon, and indeed of all the men of thought who 
wrote of those times, and not be astonished at the almost entire 
absence of the controversial element, and their frank outspokenness 
as to the real issue of the quarrel which lay between Spain and 
England. It lay simply in the fact that a vast tract of continent 
had been discovered at the other side of this planet, and that 
neither of the two nations whose ships swept the seas saw room 
for any to possess it but herself. As a matter of fact Kingsley 
saw it all; but he saw it with the eye of a Sergeant Buzfuz, 
holding a brief for a Protestant Mrs. Bardel—and the stake and 
the thumbscrew, and the rack’ of the Inquisition play the part of 
the “‘chops and tomato sauce ’’—not to speak of “ the frying- 
pan ’—in his table-thumping denunciations. He would have been 
a great artist if he hadn't been a parson. And we can forgive 
him much for that chapter at the close in which Amyas Leigh, 
whom he has fearlessly struck helpless and blind as punishment 
for his paroxysm of blasphemous hate, falls into a trance on the 
cliffs of Lundy, and, meeting in a vision the soul of the Spanish 
Don, his enemy, in the sunk galleon beneath the sea, learns from 
his lips that the ways of heaven are wider and more just than 
those of men. 


“i, . and 1 saw the grand old galleon. . . . . She has righted 
with the aweeping of the tide. She lies in fifteen fathoms, at the edge of the rocke, 
upon the sand ; and her men are al] lying around her, asleep until the judgment 
day. . . . . And J saw him, seated in his cabin like a valiant gentleman of 
Spain; and his officers were sitting round him with their swords upon the table 
at the wine. And the prawns, and the crayfish, and the rockling they swam in 
and out above their heads; but Don Guzman he never heeded, but sat still and 
drank his wine. Then he took a locket from his bosom, and I heard him speak, 
and he said: ‘ Here’s the picture of my fair and true lady ; drink to her Sefiors 
all.” Then he spoke to me, and he called me right up through the oar-weed and 
the sea: ‘‘ We have had a fair quarrel, Sefior ; it is time to be friends once more ; 
my wife and your brother have forgiven me, so your honour takes no stain.” And 
I answered: ‘‘ We are friends, Von Guzman; God has judged our quarrel, not 
we.” Then he said; ‘‘I sinned, and I am punished.’’ And I said: ‘‘ And 
Sefior, so am [.” Then he hold out his hand to me, and [ stooped to take it, and 
awoke,’ . . . . He ceased, and they looked in his face again. It was 
exhausted, yet clear and gentle, like the face of a new born babe.” 


414 The Irish Monthly 


This is Kingsley at his best; we can soarce find it in our 
hearts to condemn the narrowness of his religious bitterness since 
to it we owe “the most beautiful confession of personal faith 
since the days of St. Augustine,’’* when the samo tendency to 
inveotive and special pleading drove him to attack John Henry 
Newman, and drew forth in reply the Apologia pro vita sua. Only 
those who possess the earlier editions of this work, where 
Kingsley’s fallacies and sophisms are mercilessly exposed, can 
understand the chivalrous withdrawal of that portion by the 
author from the later editions of the work, which appeared after 
Kingley’s death. For the grave holds equally the narrowest 
mind and the widest intelligence; only hereafter men will ques- 
tion who the great Cardinal’s antagonist was, and hearing will 
think of him as the writer of Westward Ho ! 

I was standing at the fcot of the main street of Clovelly, by 
the border of the stairs leading downward to the beach, and 
leaning over the parapet of the arched gateway, whioh was built 
in the middle ages: a breakfast at six a.m. in Bideford, and a 
two hours’ drive from thence, hither on a fresh summer’s morning, 
followed by three hours’ sketching in the Lobby Drive, had 
sufficiently sharpened our appetites to make us think of luncheon 
before exploring farther, so I asked an ancient mariner, weather- 
beaten and one-eyed, who came slouching down the cobbled 
stairway of the street, the way to the New Inn. Removing his 
one optic from the distant sea-line, where the smoke of the 
incoming Ilfracombe steamer was attracting it, he slowly brought 
its gaze to bear upon us and answered in the broadest Cork 
acocent—“ Faix then, yer honour, sur, ye’ve only to g’up the 
sthreet an ye can’t miss it—the sign boords right oppossit ye over 
the dure.” 

“ You're Irish,” I remarked, somewhat superfluously. 

“Deed then I am, an’ I was wondherin if you worn’t the 
same.” 

“ Yes,” I said, ‘and I think you come from Cork.” 

The one eye brightened for a moment, and then, losing its 
light, looked tragically around. “I left Cork fifty gear ago,” 
he answered, “ 1 havn’t seen her since.’ 

é What brought you to this place?’ I said, I fear without 
tact. 

; * George Eliot. 
YOUN 








Glimpses in the West. 415 


‘© Wisha! bad luok,’’ was the sombre reply, and he was silent, 
and turning moved downward a little, and looked again at the 
sea. But the kindly nature of his race was in his face as he 
turned to us a moment after—he would not let his countryman 
go without telling something of the story of his life. “I was 
wounded before Sebastopol, and after that a blagard of a Chinee 
pirate dhruv an arra through me oi—Yerra! wasn’t I glad whin 
I heard the batin the Japs gev um !—Ha ha! more power to ye, 
sez I, there's me oi avinged for at last!” 

He turned and began painfully to descend the stone stairway 
by the gate; I thought I would venture one more remark—“ You 
have chosen a lovely place to live in,” I called after him. There 
was a grim contempt in the eye he turned upon me. 

“ May be an’ if ye wor cummin down the sthreet above on a 
winther’s night wid de snow on de ground an’ de two legs tuk 
from undher you, an’ you sthretched on de flat o’ yer back, ye’d 
call it ‘a lovely place ’!”’ 

Nothing can give the scorn of his tone as he quoted my 
words; and with the knowledge that it needed “ the fret’ of an 
Irish mind in a strange land to picture so vividly the desolate 
loneliness and discomforts of this place in the winter months, I 
climbed up the street of steps to the Inn, intending to soothe his 
ruffled feelings later on. But my chance was passed ; for when I 
went down to the tiny harbour and the pier he was nowhere to be 
found. My picturesque enthusiasms on the spot where the tragedy 
of his life had been played out awakened within him perhaps 
what Matthew Arnold described as the distinguishing Keltic note 
in literature—“ revolt against the despotism of fact.” 

Who can describe Ulovelly ? ‘The single medizeval street which 
dips sheer into the sea—with its limes and elm trees leaning above 
the houses—and its birds singing above the homes of its people, as 
they sing no where else in England—with its old-world pier of 
granite curved around its tiny harbour—and forever through the 
hours around its shores the voices of its sea. Even in the matter 
of light and shadow nature has worked her uttermost, for the 
gorge faces north, and from morning to evening the sunshine 
streams over the shoulders of the glen, lighting the tree tops and 
the house roofs, and massing their forms in half tones of shadow. 
I have not seen in so tiny a colony so many old men, nor none so 
hale as those on the pier wall—nor as stalwart and cleanly a race 


416 The Trish Monthly. 


of fishermen as thoso who ply as ferrymen to and from the 
Ilfracombe steamer. Dath is loth to touch the grey-haired men, 
who crawl out into the sunshine and shelter of the pier’s wall, 
and dreamily watch the sea, which they have spent their lives in 
fighting; he reaps his harvest instead among the young lives who 
carry on the battle along this terrible coast; and as we turn to 
say good-bye to the white town sleeping in the golden haze of s 
summer’s afternoon, we are compelled to acknowledge the rude 
force of the old Irish seaman’s logic, when we think that before 
another springtime shall have blossomed its limes and trained its 
birds full choir, its rose-trimmed casements may let in to greet 
the weary watcher’s eyes the wintry light of yet another 


“ Hopeless Dawn.” 
Montaau GRIFFIN. 


THE DEATII OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST. 


I growing very old. This weary head 

That hath so often leaned on Jesu's breast 
In days long past, that seem almost a dream— 
Is bent and hoary with its weight of years. 
These limbs that followed Him, my Master, oft 
From Galilee to Judah; yea, that stood 
Beneath the cross, and trembled with His groans, 
Refuse to bear me even through the streets, 
To preach unto my children. E’en my lips 
Refuse to form the words my heart sends forth. 
My ears are dull; they scarcely hear the sobs 
Of my dear children gathered round my couch ; 
My eyes so dim they cannot see the tears. 
God lays His hands upon me—yea, His hand, 
Not His rod—the gentle hand that I 
Felt those three years, so often pressed in mine, 
In friendship such as passeth woman’s love. 


I’m old, so old! I cannot recollect 
The faces of my friends, and I forget 
The words and deeds that make up daily life; 
But that dear face, and every word He spoke, 
Grow more distinct as others fade away; 
So that I live with Him and holy dead 
More than with living. 


The Death of St, John the Evangelist. 


Some seventy years ago 
I was a fisher by the sacred sea : 
It was ut sunset. How the tranquil tide 
Bathed dreamily the pebbles! How the light 
Crept up the distant hills, and in its wake 
Soft purple shadows wrapped the dewy fields! 
And then He came and called me: then I gazed 
For the first time on that sweet face. Those eyes 
From out of which, as from a window, shone 
Divinity, looked on my inmost soul, 
And lighted it for ever. ‘Then His words 
Broke on the silence of my heart, and made 
The whole world musical. Incarnate Love 
Took hold of me, and claimed me for its own: 
I followed in the twilight, holding fast 
His mantle. 


Oh! what holy walks we had 


Through harvest fields, and desolate, dreary wastes ; 


And oftentimes He leaned upon my arm, 
Wearied and wayworn. I was young and strong, 
And so upbore Him. Lord! now / am weak, 
And old, and feeble. Let me rest on Thee! 

So put Thine arm around me closer still ! 

How strong Thou art! The daylight dawns apace : 
Come, let us leave these noisy streets, and take 
The path to Bethany ; for Mary’s smile 

Awaits us at the gate; and Martha’s hands 

Have long prepared the cheerful evening meal; 
Come, James, the Master waits, and Peter, see, 
Has gone some steps before. 


What say you, friends? 
That this is Ephesus, and Christ has gone 
Back to His kingdom? Ay, ’tis so, ’tis so, 
1 know it all; and yet, just now, I seemed 
To stand once more upon my native hills, 
And touch my Master. Oh, how oft I’ve seen 
The touching of His garments bring back strength 
To palsied limbs! I feel it has to mine. 
Up! bear me to my church once more, 
There let me tell them of a Saviour's love ; 
For by the sweetness of my Master's voice 


417 


418 The Irish Monthly. 


Just now, I think he must be very near,— 
Coming, I trust, to break the veil which time 
Has worn so thin that I can see beyond, 

And watch His footsteps. 


So raise up my head; 
How dark it is! I cannot e’en discern 
The faces of my flock. Is that the sea 
That murmurs so, or is it weeping? Hush! 
‘My little children! God so loved the world 
He gave His Son; so love ye one another, 
Love God and men. Amen.’ Now bear me back ; 
My legacy unto an angry world is this. 
I feel my work is finished. Are the streets so full? 
What call the flock my name? the Holy John? 
Nay, write me rather, Jesus Christ's beloved, 
And lover of my children 


Lay me down 
Once more upon my couch, and open wide 
The eastern window. See! there comes a light 
Like that which broke upon my soul at even, — 
When, in the dreary Isle of Patmos, Gabriel came, 
And touched me on the shoulder. See! it grows 
As when we mount towards the pearly gates ; 
I know the way! I trod it once before. 
And hark! it is the song the ransomed sung, 
Of glory tothe Lamb! How loud it sounds ! 
And that unwritten one! Methinks, my soul 
Can join it now. But who are these that crowd 
The shining way? Joy! joy! ’tis the eleven, 
With Peter first ; :ow eagerly he looks ! 
How bright the smiles are beaming on J ames’ face ! 
I am the last. Once more we are complete, 
To gather round the Pascal feast. 


My place 
Is next my Master. Oh! my Lord! my Lord! 
How bright Thou art, and yet the very same 
I loved in Galilee! ’Iis worth the hundred years 
To feel this bliss. So lift me up, dear Lord, 
Unto ‘ihy bosom. There shall I abide. 
[This poem is said to have a appeared anonymously in a magazine at Philadelphia 


many years ago, It seems well to reprint h from a fly-le.f that hae fallen into 
my hands. ] 


4 —_ bh 








(419 ) 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 


CHapter XVIII. 


ALI. AMONG THE HAY. 


Now warms the village o’er the joyful mead ; 
The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil, 
Healthful and strong. 

THOMSON, 


ee intense blue of the July sky was overlaid here and there 

with patches of white cloud like silver shields upon an arras 
of azure. A steady wind blew from the south-east, and fanned the 
faces of the hay-makers as they toiled in the heat of noon-day. 
Men and boys alike were tanned a ruddy brown, and the per- 
spiration stood thick upon their brows. 

One or two of the lads were lagging a little in their labour. 
They had begun immediately after breakfast, and their onthusi- 
asm had led them to do prodigies of “tedding”’ through the 
morning hours—swift and steady work that left the two or three 
hired labourers far behind the spurting youngsters. But when 
the noon-day Angelus sounded, the boys discovered that their 
elders were gaining ground, and even Hilary had to admit that 
the pace was too fast to be kept up. 

é“ Well, Hilly, you started it,” said Lance, sticking his fork 
into the ground, and taking off his straw hat in order to mop his 
forehead. 

Hilary looked at his watch 

é“ Tt’ll soon be time to fetch dinner,” he remarked soothingly. 
é Tell you how we'll manage it. Harry and George and I will 
go down to the house and bring up the grub. You and Willie 
and Alf and Gareth, stop here and lay the table.” 

The interlude was agreeable to every body, and the four younger 
boys immediately ran off to the shade of two great elm trees at 
the bottom of the ten-acre. A great hamper had already been 
placed there, and in this they found plates and outlery and table 
linen. 


420 The Irish Mouthly, 


The breeze played merrily with the huge table-cloth as the 
boys unrolled and began to spread it. 

é“ Ilere, I say,” shouted Lance, as each of tho other three put 
his foot on a corner of the cloth to keep it in its place, “that wiil 
never do! ” 

“ My ologs are quite olean,” sang out Alf. 

“So are mine,” retorted Lance, “ but I’m going to keep them 
off the cloth. Perhaps,’”’—— (pointing to the impression of the 
clog-sole Willie Munnington had imprinted upon his corner) 
é“ perhaps you think the cloth wants troniny.’ 

Willie was always ready to laugh at Lance’s jokes, and his 
outburst was contagious. 

é You chaps stick to your corners till I get a pile of plates. 
That'll do the business,” said Lance struggling with a mass of 
crockery that, for carrying purposes, ought to have been divided 
by four. 

é“ Ah! ” he exclaimed, as he dumped them down at Gareth’s 
corner and heard an ominous crack. “ What rotten plates! I 
do believe the bottom one has gone and broken itself—just out of 
spite! ” 

“ Just hold my corner, Gareth,” called out Willie, “while I 
help Lance.” 

é“ Don't smash more than you can help, Billie,” said Lance. 
“There mightn’t be enough to go round at dinnor, and ——well, 
I’m peckish, I can tell you.” 

“I say, Lance!” shouted Willie, “ here’s a bundle of towels 
and some cakes of soap.” 

“ Hurrah!” returned Lance, and then, breaking into song— 
““ IT know a pump from which the water flows. Come on, you chaps! 
We'll have a jolly good scrub before the others turn up. We're 
the pages in waiting, you know—thongh I hope they won’t keep 
us waiting too long. But we shall have to hand things about at 
the beginning of dinner.” 

The pump and cattle-trough were in the next field, and the 
four water-babies, while greatly lamenting the fact that there was 
not time to run down to the river for a bathe, splashed and ducked 
one another joyously. 

“ But, we shall have a jolly dip to-night before we go home,” 
exclaimed Lance, rubbing his wet curls with great vigour. “ And 
Billie, my lad, you've got to learn to swim, remember ! ” 











Doings in the Dale. 42] 


“ Yes,” said the pale-faced, but smiling lad, *‘ I'm longing for 
that. What time do we finish ?”’ 

“ Depends upon lots of things; but not later than seven 
o’clock.” 

é“ Here they come!” shouted Alfred as he sighted a sort of 
triumphal procession in the near distance. ‘ Hurrah! there’s 
father and mother !—Hilly and Hally are tugging at that hand- 
cart as though it were heavy.” 

“ Let’s run and meet “em,” said Lance, “and give ’em a shove 
behind.” 

Everybody was there—even Aladdin, whose head was said to 
be much better; for the wounds inflicted by Cyril had been skil- 
fully healed (with a paint brush) by the ever sympathetic 
George. 

“Only you must keep him well out of the sun,” the painter 
doctor had warned Maggie. “ If he gets sunstroke on the top of 
his concussion, the case will be a serious one.” 

So, all things considered, it was thought better that Aladdin 
should be accommodated with a seat in Sweetie’s hooded carriage. 

Arrived at the hay-field, the Squire eyed with pleasure the 
amount of work already done. 

“I’m going to be the waiter to-day,” he exclaimed. ‘Sit 
down, my darlings, every one of you! The workers must be fed 
first.” 

é Just as if ‘you hadn't worked harder than any of us, father,” 
remonstrated George. 

* But not in the sun, old man. I’ve been sitting since half- 
past nine in a nicely shaded study.” 

“Only you must dress for dinner, my dears, by putting on 
your coats,” said Mrs. Ridingdale. ‘‘ What naughty boys you 
were to leave them at home! I had them all put in the hand- 
cart.” 

(The workers had come out to the hay-field in cricket-shirts, 
their white flannel knickerbockers, belted in true labouring fashion 
with a broad leather strap.) 

The finding of a sufficiently shady place for Aladdin was 
greatly ocoupying Maggie. Dolls were only permitted at dinner 
when that meal was an a/ fresco one, and both Maggie and Connie 
were anxious that their inanimate charges should enjoy this 
privilege to the full. 


422 The Irish Monthly. 


When the meal of cold meats and salad, pastry and cheese, 
had been laid, the Squire said grace, and the attack was hearty 
and swift. Many of the boys were disposed, in attitudes more or 
less picturesque, on the mossy bank that sloped down to the 
linen-covered grass, and Aladdin had been accommodated with a 
seat between Maggie and George, his physicinn in ordinary, who 
assured the anxious Maggie that the spot was sufficiently sheltered 
from the sun. Sad to relate, however, Aladdin’s conduct from 
the very beginning of the meal foll far short of what might have 
been expected from an invalid doll. 

No doubt acrobatic feats are diverting enough in their way, 
but a guest is scarcely expected to indulge in them during the 
progress of a family dinner. Yet the contortions of Aladdin as 
the meal went on were many and various—beginning with the 
raising of stiff but protesting arms (as though objecting to the 
bill of fare, or his own exclusion from avything but a passive 
share in the feast) and ending with an attitude which was dis- 
tinctly pugilistic. 

It is true that those two “ teasers,” Harry and Lance, were in 
the near neighbourhood ; but, whenever Maggie looked at them, 
their appearance of complete absorption was perfect and convinc- 
ing. George himself, of course, was above suspicion. However, 
after Maggie had seriously taken Aladdin to task, threatening 
him with a total loss of hay-field privileges, his conduct under- 
went a change for the better. 

Alas! was this a mere subterfuge—a plot for throwing the 
matronly Maggie off her guard? Well, it may be that Aladdin’s 
naughtiness will never be sufficiently explained; but it is a fact 
that just when the little girl had satisfied herself that he had 
fallen asleep, he turned a somersault in the air and fell, head 
foremost, in the very middle of a cold milk pudding, thereby 
covering himself with lasting disgrace and much rice. 

To Maggie the laughter seemed louder and more prolonged 
than the incident merited. George had immediately flown to the 
rescue of the erratic Aladdin, and Maggie’s tears were only 
checked on the reiterated assurance of the physician in ordinary 
that plunging into a poultice of rice and milk was a specific for a 
damaged head, and that unerring instinct, or the cravings of 
hunger, must have led to the commission of this rash, and 
apparently suicidal, act on the part of the suffering doll. 








Dongs ín the Dole, 423 


Three hours later tea was served at the same place, and the 
company greatly increased by the arrival of Mr. Kittleshot, the 
Colonel, Dr. Byrse and his three boys—Augustus, Louis, and 
Victor. 

The Doctor himself—looking much older than his years—seemed 
a little shy; but his boys were noticeably nervous and ill at ease, 
in spite of the efforts of Hilary & Co. to make them feel at home. 
Lance was quite crest-fallen at his inability to elicit from Augustus, 
the eldest, any reply to his many questions other than a half- 
frightened ‘Oh, no,” or “ Oh, yes,” uttered in that drawling Cock- 
ney accent which is so much more painful to listen to than the 
broadest burr of the provinces. 

“Never play cricket! ’’ exclaimed Lance, scarcely able to 
believe his own ears; and the velvet-clad Augustus replied with 
a more than usually prolonged “ O-h-h, no-o-o.” 

It was a big disappointment to the Ridingdale lads. As soon 
as the hay was in, there would be (as usual) almost constant 
cricket for a month at least, and an average of three set matches 
every week with the clubs of the Dale. And not one of these 
new arrivals had ever handled a bat ! 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE DOINGS OF THE DOCTOR. 


Were the fates more kind, 
Our narrow luxuries would soon grow stale ; 
Were these exhaustless, nature would grow sick, 
And, cloyed with pleasure, squeamishly proclaim 


That all is vanity, and life a dream. 
JoHN ARMSTRONG, 


The inquisitorial powers of Mr. Kittleshot were well-known 
to the Ridingdale family and others; but even the Squire had 
not credited his friend with the possession of a talent for kindly 
conspiracy. When the true nature of the latter’s offer of the 
services of a professor of music was fully understood by Mr. 
Ridingdale, his first feeling was one of annoyance—a feeling that 
two minutes’ refleotion dissipated for ever. 

“TI should be a downright brute if I showed anything but 





424 The Irish Monthly. 


pleasure and gratitude,” he said to his wife. “ But he must 
think me a somewhat difficult man to approach.”’ 

é“ Not necessarily that,” Mrs. ltidingdale replied. ‘‘ But you 
must confess, dear, that you—perhaps I ought to say we—were 
needlessly cold towards him in the beginning.” 

“é Our meeting for the first time at mid-winter may have had 
something to do with that,” Jaughed the Squire. “ But I admit 
that I was afraid of him at first. I mean fearful of having much 
to do with so wealthy a man. I’m thankful now, my dear, that 
we never really snubbed him. I was thinking more of the boys, 
and the possible influence his wealth might have upon them, 
rather than of ourselves. For the lads must sometimes feel that 
it is a sorry thing to be born poor.”’ 

é TI don’t think, my dear, that you have any reason for 
thinking so.” 

s No particular reason, certainly.” 

‘And I have every reason for thinking—nay for knowing— 
that not one of them would have things other than they are. 
How often you hear them say when they are working, or in some 
way making shift: ‘What fun! why, if we were richer, we 
should miss no end of sport!’ ”’ 

é“ Dear fellows!’ exolaimed the Squire, “they are certainly 
happy enough. And they are so fully occupied they have not 
time to be very naughty or discontented, or bored. Their day is 
always as full as it can be.” 

“ As full as your own, dear. The very thought of your being 
able to secure a little leisure makes me think of Mr. Kittleshot 
with the deepest gratitude. Tell me, John,” continued Mrs. 
Ridingdale, looking anxiously at her husband, ‘do tell me that 
you do not resent this action of his,” 

“ My darling, I should be the greatest oad alive if I did. The 
truly vulgar man is one who will never place himself under an 
obligation to another. I own that when I first saw through 
Kittleshot’s design, I felt a momentary resentment; but I assure 
you, my dear, it was only momentary.” 

“ What will the Colonel say when he knows the truth P” 

“ We must let him find it out by degrees. Of course he is 
pleased enough to have Byrse in the neighbourhood, and he has 
already suggested that the Doctor should take the organ at 
Church.” 








Doings in the Dale. 425 


é“ Has he really ?”’ asked Mrs. Ridingdale. 

“Yes, really and truly. I fancy he did not care to goon 
playing every Sunday within hearing of a mus. doo.” 

é“ And Mr. Kittleshot does not object ?” 

“Not at all. Says it was part of his plan.” 

“ But the Colonel played very well, dear. And he has done 
so much to improve our organ.” 

“ O, my love, he is musician enough to wish for the best that 
can be had, and is ready to sacrifice his personal pleasure for the 
general good. He has pressed Father Horbury so much on the 
point that I am sure he is really anxious to resign in Byrse’s 
favour.” : 

“ By-the-by, where is the Doctor? We have not seen him 
since the hay-making was finished.” 

‘Well, you remember Mr. K. saying that Byrse was going to 
London on business? I have asked no questions, but I suspect 
the Doctor is engaged in buying musical instruments. Kittleshot 
is most anxious to begin the training of the Timington orchestra.” 

é“ Has he found likely pupils ?”’ 

“Only two in Timington. I saw his difficulty from the first, 
but I was determined not to discourage him. The town of 
Ridingdale will, eventually, benefit most by the band, and I have 
no doubt he will pick up a certain number of likely young men 
in the Dale generally.” 

Mrs. Ridingdale laughed in an amused way. 

‘© What is it, dear? ” her husband asked. 

é“ Don’t you think the Ridingdale family will benefit, first, and 
last, and most, by this project ? ”’ 8 

“ What do you mean, my darling P” 

“ Really, John, you are very slow sometimes. Much reading 
and writing makes you stupid in some things. Didn’t you hear 
Mr. Kittleshot cross-questioning the boys the other day ? ” 

é Well, he is always doing that, you know.” 

“ Yes, but this was in regard to their knowledge of musical 
instruments.” 

The Squire rose and walked to the window. It was a wet 
evening in early August, and the greatly needed rain was restoring 
the vivid green of the lawn, and washing a month’s dust from 
plants and trees. The younger children were all in the nursery, 
and the bigger boys were not yet home from the Chantry, where 
they had been spending a long day. 


426 The Irish Monthly. 


‘You don’t mean to say’’—the Squire began slowly, as he 
returned to his chair,— you don’t mean to say—”’ 

é“ What ever is the matter! ” exclaimed Mrs. Ridingdale as 
the house became vocal with alternate shouts of ‘ Father!’ 
‘Mother!’ 

‘‘Tt’s only the return of the rebels, dear,” said the Squire. 

é“ But they are fearfully excited,” she returned, with a look of 
alarm. 

There was a great clatter of clogs in the distance, and as the 
sound advanced the noise of a souffle and scrimmage in the passage 
outside, as of half a dozen boys trying all at once to seize the 
door handle. Then, as the door flew open, Lance, owing to the 
pressure from behind, was suddenly shot forward into the room, 
the rest remaining jammed in the doorway. 

é“ Do come down to the scullery, father!” he exclaimed, 
excitedly. “Do come, mother! There's a box as big as a 
house ! ” 

é“ Lance, you naughty boy!” cried Mrs. Ridingdale; ‘ look 
at the mess you are making ! ” 

The rain wasrunning in streams off his oil-skin cape and leather 
leggings, and the marks of his clogs were visible on the carpet. 
But the Squire had already taken him by the ear, and driving the 
rest before him playfully threatened them with dire punishment 
if they did not immediately change their wet garments. 

‘The change was a rapid one, but when father and mother had 
both assured themselves that, thanks to clogs and leggings and 
oil-skin, there was no such thing as a wet foot or damp garment 
among the seven, they suffered themselves to be dragged to the 
scullery. 

“Qh!” said the Squire, affecting to yawn as he surveyed the 
gigantic packing-case, “: that’ll keep all right till to-morrow.” 

The boys groaned in unison, and even Hilary turned to his 
father with a look of mute appeal. 

“It’s too big to open to-night,’’ said the squire, trying to 
stifle his smile with another yawn. But the boys were not to be 
taken in. Their father’s indifference was glaringly artificial. 

“ He doesn’t mean it !”’ 

é“ Fetch the chisels ! ”” 

‘“‘ Hold it on end!” 

“ Bring a couple of mallets!” 





Doings in the Dale. 427 


“ Mind your foot ! ” 

“ It’s precious heavy ! ”’ 

é [ know what's inside.”’ 

“ Bo do I!” 

é“ Here, Hilary,” said the Squire, “you take one chisel and 
begin there. I'll tackle this side. You fellows stand back a 
little, and control your emotion.”’ 

A ory rose from the boys as the huge lid was raised and the 
top layer of packing material was removed. Side by side they 
lay like coffins in a tomb, six violins—to begin with! Another 
layer of shavings and paper was pounced upon and thrust aside, 
and behold—flutes, oboes, and clarionets ! 

é“ The horns and cornets will be at the bottom,” shouted the 
Squire—for the hubbub had become indescribable. 

“ Where are the drums!” cried Lance. 

“ How could you get drums in here, goosey ?” 

“ Hore’s the triangle, anyhow! ” 

“I’ve got a tambourine | ”’ 

é“ What are these thingsP Castanets! ” 

“Jolly! let's try em! ” 

“ But there’s no cello! ” 

“ Nor double bass! ” 

Then Jane, an amused and interested onlooker, stepped 
forward and told the Squire that the carter had said there were 
several other bulky packages at the station, but that he had not 
been able to fix them upon his cart with sufficient security. They 
would be delivered in the morning, she added. 

“Just come at the right time—haven’t they ? ” 

“ Who's going to play which ? ” 

é“ I shall have the drum—when it comes.” 

“ Harry will take a violin, of course.” 

““ Yes—and George too.” 

*‘ What shall you play, father P ”’ 

They were all trying the various instruments, all talking at 
once, and asking questions without waiting for answers. But 
when their mother put her hand to her head, the Squire imme- 
diately stopped the pandemonium of shrieking strings and 
squealing reeds, and ordered every instrument to be returned to 
its case. 

é Well, Mr. K. ts a brick!” said Harry. 


498 The Irish Monthly. 


“‘Oourse he is! ”” exclaimed Lance. “ Father, do let us begin 
to learn ’em to-morrow, so that we oan serenade him as soon as 
possible.”’ 

é“ When will Dr. Byrse be back ? '” George enquired. 

é“ What will the Colonel say P ” cried one. 

But the prayer-bell silenced questions and explanations alike. 

é“ Was I not right, dear?” asked Mrs. Ridingdale of her 
husband, when the boys were in bed, and a great quiet had 
settled upon the house. 

“ Perfectly, my darling,” her husband answered. ‘I see 
through the whole business now. We are evidently to form the 
nucleus of the Timington orchestra. But the gift, if it is a gift, is 
& princely one.” 

So husband and wife spent a happy hour in talking over the 
prospective orchestra, and discussing the capabilities of their 
boys for the different instruments. 

But when they made their usual round through the children’s 
sleeping-quarters, they found several of the bigger boys in a state 
of troubled slumber, and came upon Lance sitting up in bed 
at the close of a struggle with a prolonged night-mare. It 
transpired later that he had dreamed he was shut up in a big 
drum, both sides of which were made of pastry and were being 
heavily belaboured by the drum-sticks of Mr. Kittleshot and the 
Colonel. 


CHAPTER XX. 
AN ORCHESTRA IN EMBRYO. 


In that aweet soil it seems a holy quire 
Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes 
Of sweet-lipped angel-imps, that swill their throats 


In cream of morning Helicon. 
CrasHaw. 


Since Dr. Byrse’s arrival at Timington Hall, the Ridingdales 
had seen much of him. He had appeared again and again in the 
hay-field, and had already made the individual acquaintance of 
his future pupils. In the aggregate they alarmed him somewhat, 
for he was a small, nervous man, shy with strangers, and suffering 
a good deal from over-work and worry, and at first the prospect 
of having to do with these six or seven sturdy, noisy fellows, gave 











Doings in the Dale, 429 


him something of a fright. Fortunately for his own peace of 
mind, he soon discovered that the boys in the hay-field and the 
boys in the school-room were very different personages. Lessons 
were not to begin until the end of August, but, at the lads’ own 
express wish, musical instruction was to commence at once. 

“ 1 have not had such a month’s rest for many years,” he said 
to the Squire, the morning after the arrival of the instruments. 
“ And my doings of the last week have been of the moat interest- 
ing character—as you know. The choosing and buying of all 
those fiddles, &o., has given me enormous pleasure. Mr. Kittleshot 
would not hear of placing any limit to the cost, and I have gone 
about London feeling almost as if I myself were the millionaire.” 

“My dear Byrse,” exclaimed the Squire, ‘‘ you’re already 
looking befter and heartier. Your appearance quite startled me 
when you first came here. I hope the lads won't, be too much for 
you. I’m not going to crack them up. They are as full of fun 
and mischief as any boys in the world, but I can promise you 
that you will find them obedient, and prepared for any amount of 
hard work.” 

“I see already that they have been trained to obey and to 
sweat,” said the Doctor, with a sigh of relief. ‘I am pretty sure 
now that we shall get on; but I confess that in the beginning I 
was afraid of them. They are so fearfully healthy and strong, 
and—well, perhaps man/y is the only word for it.” 

The Squire could not help showing his pleasure as he replied : 
é Yes, I think they are manly. I knew that none of my children 
would inherit anything in the shape of money or property—with 
the exception of Hilary. (My grandfather, Lord Dalesworth, 
before he died, settled Ridingdale Hall and farm upon the eldest 
lad.) Now, to my mind, the greatest oruelty, and almost the 
greatest crime, a parent can be guilty of is to bring up in softness 
and luxury children that must of very necessity earn their own 
bread, and rely entirely upon their own efforts.” 

Dr. Byrse sighed. He fully agreed with his old friend, but 
alas! the poor Professor was handicapped with a wife who bowed 
down daily in the temple of gentility, and who was always ready 
to sacrifice health and comfort to the goddess Fashion. The 
inferior of her husband both in birth and education, and always 
making the most of a certain real delicacy of constitution, she had 
become a dead weight upon the Doctor’s aspirations, and a con- 





Z0V AI LAOIS sunny, 


stant drawback in his efforts to gain a position of competency. 
The Squire’ had as yet seen very little of his friend’s wife and 
children, and was only half aware of the true state of things in 
their connection. 

é When do you think of moving to the farm?” asked Riding- 
dale; for the latest suggestion of Mr. Kittleshot had been that 
the Byrse’s should take a certain comfortable set of apartments in 
the house of the Squire’s bailiff. ‘ They will be just the thing for 
Mrs. Byrse,” the millionaire had said, “ and for the Doctor him- 
self nothing could be handier.” 

Both Ridingdale and Byrse were delighted with this arrange- 
ment, and though Mrs. Byrse resented it exceedingly she was too 
wise to object to the plan in Mr. Kittleshot’s presence. The 
luxury of Timington Hall she thoroughly appreciated, and the 
Doctor’s present difficulty was to convince her that the time had 
come for them to move into their new home. 

“T hope ”—the Doctor began hesitatingly in reply to Riding- 
dale’s question—‘I hope to leave Timington in a few days. 
But Mrs. Byrse is in such—such poor health just now that 
[——”’ 

The poor man paused and looked uncomfortable. 

“ Oh,” said the Squire heartily, “I don’t suppose there is the 
least hurry. We shall not begin lessons before the first of Sept- 


ember.” 
“ But you would like the boys to take up their instruments 


during the holiday time?” said the Professor, looking relieved. 

“ Well, if it is not asking too much of you.” 

éI am a perfectly free man, you see. Suppose we begin at 
once.” 

Twenty years before, when Mr. and Mrs. Ridingdale first 
saw the house that was to be their home, they were in despair as 
to its size and the number of big rooms it contained. But in this 
August of the year 189—, they were heartily thankful for every 
square inch of space the Hall possessed. When the weather was 
fine, violins and other instruments could be taken into the open, 
and though, as Lance declared, every single bird forsook the 
neighbourhood as soon as the practising began, the squeak of cat- 
gut, and the unearthly notes drawn by the younger pupils from 
reed and cornet, could not penetrate to the Squire’s study. But 
there were rainy days from time to time, and then long-closed 





Doings in the Dale. 431 


rooms on the top floor were thrown open, and the lads soraped 
and blew their exercises without more than a very distant echo 
reaching the ears of father or mother. 

Like his brother, Hilary had a fair knowledge of music, and 
played the piano well, if mechanically. However, the Doctor 
declared that the lad had a defective ear, so after a fow trials he 
gave up the violin for the drums—greatly to Lance’s disgust. 
But his tutor had decided that, after Harry—who had already 
mastered the two or three instruments his father owned, and gave 
promise of being a first-rate musiclan—Lance had the best chance 
of becoming a brilliant player of the violin, The boy grumbled 
a good deal and protested against the “beastly drudgery,” as he 
called it; but when he found that the Doctor’s eldest son, 
Augustus, was already a finished performer, Lance set himself to 
his exercises with enthusiasm. 

“ Not going to be beaten by a kid who can’t tell a sparrow 
from a barn-door fowl, and who shrieks like a maniac at the sight 
of a cow,” Lance said one day. ‘‘ Can’t imagine where the poor 
chap has lived.” 

All the Ridingdale lads were being alternately moved to 
kindly pity and comical contempt for the Dooctor’s three boys, 
whose terror at the approach of the most peaceable and affec- 
tionate animals was to the country-bred youths simply inexplic- 
able. For since their first meeting they had seen much of the 
Byrses. 

é“ What I can’t understand is,” began Harry, “ they don’t seem 
to have read anything except a rotten weekly paper called Zhe 

Upper Ten.” 

* And that rag On Dit—the paper father took up with the tongs 
the other day, and set fire to it with a match,” said George. 

‘“They’ve never read a line of Scott,” Willie Murrington re- 
marked. 

“ Oh, as for that,” chirped Lance, with fine contempt, “ Lord 
Augustus was pleased to inform me that Robinson Crusoe was out 
of date, and that Dickens ‘ was too tulgar, don’t you know ?’”’ 

Lance’s mimicry of the tone of the boy he called Lord 
Augustus was perfect. 

“They ought to know the Krupton’s,” said Hilary, chuck- 
ling.” 

The notion provoked a shout of laughter. 


439 The Irish Monthly. 


6 Oh ! ” exclaimed Lance ecstatically, “ we must introduce them. 
Bobby and Dick are sure to play in the Wednesday match, and 
Jack said he’d come if his dad didn’t take him to Doncaster.” 

é“ What fun!” cried Harry. “ Bobby’s just about Lord Gus’s 
age, and is sure to bet him two to one in tanners before they’ ve 
had three minutes’ talk,”’ 

é They re at such entirely opposite ends of the rope that they 
may fairly be expected to meet and tie and become chummy,” 
said George, laughing on in his quiet way. ‘‘ Bobby’s only read- 
ing is The Straight Tip, as he takes care to tell you, and I fancy 
it’s quite as instructive as On Dit.’ 

“ After all, though,” Harry began, ‘‘that young Augustus 
can play the violin. It’li take you, Master Lanny, a precious long 
time to catch him up.”’ 

é“ But it wouldn't take me long to catch him out,” cried the 
irrepressible Lance, who had quite recently covered himself with 
glory by making the most difficult catch of the Ridingdale 
season. 

August was a true holiday month and (with the exception, 
perhaps, of January with its Christmas plays) brought the boys 
into closer connection with their neighbours than any other time 
of the year. The Squire never gave formal dinners, but a plain 
cricket luncheon was not beyond his means, and the matches 
proved an excellent excuse for entertaining—not merely the 
young people of his own class, but their grown-up relatives. 

Mr. Kittleshot, junior, excused himself year after year, on the 
plea of business engagements, from accepting Ridingdale’s in- 
vitation, but his wife, as well as his two sons Horace and Bertie, 
were always present on what was called the Big Day. . It is hardly 
necessary to say that Mr. Kittleshot, senior, put in an appearance 
at every match. 

On each Saturday afternoon appeared a different eleven made 
up of the poorer boys of the Dale—lads from Hardlow and 
Timington as well as from Ridingdale, and their unmistakable 
appreciation of the Squire’s hospitality made the good man regret 
that he could not entertain them oftener and more sumptuously. 
A defeat from one of these rustic teams was occasionally suffered 
by Hilary and his brothers, and, though at the time they did their 
best to prevent it, they never begrudged a victory to their poorer 
friends. The village lads were full of praise of the fairness of the 





Doings in the Dale. 433 


young gentlemen, for in thes ematches the latter always played in 
clogs, so that their opponents, most of whom never wore anything 
else, might not be placed at a disadvantage. 

Nothing was lost on Mr. Kittleshot, senior, He noted the 
pleasant relations that evidently existed between the Squire’s sons 
and their humbler neighbours. He remarked the friendly courtesy 
with which the young patricians treated their opponents during 
the game, and the eager solicitude with which the well-born lads 
waited upon their guests at the subsequent high tea. He com- 
mented upon the generous applause given by the young Riding- 
dale’s whenever the young villagers made good play. 

And when the day of the Big Match came, Mr, Kittleshot kept 
a sharp eye upon his grandsons. On the evening of that day the 
millionaire made two resolutions. 


(To be continued). 


Davip BEARNE, 8.J. 


BUTTERCUPS. 


f I HE purest gold that miner ever found 
In torrid clime or under Arctic snows, 
Was not more lovely than this flower that glows— 
A flower of gold—in all the fields around, 
Issuing fresh-minted from God’s mint, the ground ; 
Like all best things His lavish hand bestows 
On man for need or for delight—like those, 
The buttercups in myriads abound. 


If there were only one sweet buttercup 
Made day by day, the millionaires would vie, 
One with another, in their greediness 
To own it; but, since God sends such largess 
Of beanty, ’midst the green grass welling up, 
Seeing we see not but pass thankless by. 
JosEPH MaconaMARA. 


( 434 ) 


CLAVIS ACROSTICA. 


A Kry To “ Dusiin Acrostics.” 


No. 33. 


Whispering of peace, yet hostile to repose, 
I give divided joys, divided woes. 


My common attribute is shame, 

And yet when from my first I spring, 
I’m often linked with honour’s name, 
Andjdraw my being from a king. 


1, When you say me, no worse remains to say. 

2. What every lover loves, that peerless wonder ! 

3. What when you've solved me, you'll exclaim to-day. 
4. What marks the author’s, not the printer’s blunder. 
5, The plunderer once but now the prey of plunder. 


O. 


This is, as the reader knows who has followed this series so 
far, one of Judge ©’Hagan’s clever acrostics. The two kindred 
words of five letters each, described in the couplet and the 
quatrain, are whist and trick. How ingeniously the interjectional 
use of “whist!” is turned to account, and that phrase of the 
game, “honours are divided ;” and in the next four lines how 
obscurely the poet reveals that you may win a trick at cards by 
having the king in your hand! The “lights,” whose initials 
spell whist and whose finals spell ¢rick, are worst, her, invent (“I 
have found it out ”], sic, and Turk. Where a word seems net to 
make sense in a proof sheet, and yet is found to be so written by 
the Author, sic is written after it, meaning ‘thus in the M.S.” 
The unspeakable Turk has improved his position a little since 
this acrostic was written. 





( 4356 ) 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


1. The Wend in the Trees, A Book of Country Verse. By Katharine 
Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson) London: Grant Richards. 

If joyous perseverance is a very satisfactory proof of the genuine- 
ness of a vocation, there can be no doubt that poetry is Mrs. Hink- 
son’s true calling. Her first volume of collected verse, “ Louise la 
Valliére and other Poems,” only dates back to the year 1885, and the 
dozen years since then have seen more than half a dozen of separate 
poetical volumes from her pen. After the one we have named came 
‘‘Shamrocks,”’ ‘‘ Ballads and Lyrics,” ‘‘ Cuckoo Songs,” ‘ Miracle 
Plays,” and ‘‘A Lover's Breast-knot,’’ and now the book of country 
verse which bears the original and pretty name of “The Wind in the 
Trees.’ A remarkable list surely, even if one were not aware that it 
represents only the flower of a busy life-work of graceful and versatile 
prose. 

What Zhe Atheneum said of Mrs. Hinkson’s “ Ballads and Lyrics” 
in 1892 is true of her new volume. ‘“ She writes with the simplicity 
and spontaneousness that go so far in themselves to make poetry, and 
for want of which so much ably written verse, rich with many merits, 
fails to be poetry ; and she has the delicate touch which makes, one 
scarcely knows how, music and meaning of a few words lightly put 
together.” After Wordsworth, Shelley, George Meredith, and many 
another, Mrs. Hinkson has still something to say of the “lark ascend- 
ing ”:— 

All day in exquisite air 
The song clomb an invisible air, 


Flight on flight, story on story, 
Into the dazzling glory. 


There was no bird, only a singing, 

Up in the glory, climbing and ringing, 
Like a small golden cloud at even, 
Trembling ’twixt earth and heaven, 


I saw no staircase winding, winding, 
Up in the dazzle, sapphire and blinding, 
Yet round by round in exquisite air, 
The song went up the stair. 


And here is the beginning of her tribute to the ‘“sun’s brave 
herald,” ales dset nuntsus. 


436 The Irish Monthly. 


Of all the birds from East to Weat, 
That tuneful are and dear, 

I love that farmyard bird the best, 
They call him Chanticleer, 


Gold plume and copper plume, 
Comb of scarlet gay ; 

’Tis he that scatters night and gloom, 
And whistles back the day! 


Besides the freshness of her inspiration, Mrs. Hinkson has great 
technical skill ; and it is of set purpose that she allows herself occasion- 
ally a lax rhyme, which we greatly regret. Her very first couplet 
makes “ sweet” an adverb rhyming with “bit.” An Irish heart and 
Irish idiom break out in many of these little lyrics; for they are all 
lyrics, and all brief. Mrs. Hinkson has wisely thought it unneces- 
sary to put in the front any long poem, such as led the van in her 
earlier volumes. No less than forty of the present collection originally 
brightened the pages of the Pall Mall Gazette—a circumstance which 
goes far to guarantee the up-to-dateness of this pleasant and graceful 
muse. 

2. Another Irish poetess who does not imitate the austere reticence 
of Alice Meynell and Rosa Mulholland is Miss Eleanor C. Donnelly 
who lives on the other side of the Atlantic. The latest of her many 
volumes of verse are two exquisite quarto booklets, brought out very 
artistically with beautiful illustrations by the publishers, H. L. Kilner 
and Co., of Philadelphia. These dainty specimens of American typo- 
graphy are “The Rhyme of the Friar Stephen” and “Christian 
Carols of Love and Life.” The legend of Friar Stephen is a very 
interesting story told with great grace and spirit, rolling on with 
_those alternate dissyllabic rhymes which Miss Donnelly manages with 
consummate skill and ease. The companion quarto, instead of one 
long poem, is made up of seventeen musical lyrics, through most of 
which a paschal spirit runs. They are very devout and joyous in their 
tone, and somehow we think them too truly poetical to require so very 
ornamental a shrine. A simpler get-up would have pleased us better. 

The abundance of Miss Donnelly’s poetical output is the more 
extraordinary that she, like Mrs. Hinkson, uses prose also ae her 
literary medium. The latest of her many prose volumes is ‘‘ Storm- 
bound, a Romance of Shell Beach,” issued by the same publishers, 
who have brought it out in a very pleasant but less luxurious form. 
It seems that there was a terrific storm on, at least, a certain part of 
the Amerioan coast in September, 1889. This is used to introduce the 
circumstances in which nine separate stories are told by the old 
Colonel, the Doctor, and his poet-guest—who tells his story in verse, 





Notes on New Books. 437 


in which by the way the dissyllabic rhymes are not manipulated with 
Miss Donnelly’s usual conscientiousness —the other story-tellers being 
a young Seminarian, his Mother and his Aunt, together with the 
Hostess, the Governess, and the Doctor’s little daughter. These 
stories told very gracefully must have filled very pleasantly the seven 
days during which the party were ‘‘Storm-bound ” at Shell Beach, 
and they will while away many an hour usefully and pleasantly for 
their readers. 

3. The Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ from Pascal. A Commentary. 
By William Bullen Morris, of the Oratory. (London: Burns and 
Oates. Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son.) 

This book is so extremely interesting and so valuable that we 
begin by mentioning its price—only three shillings for a handsome 
volume of goodly size. The first pages give a minute analysis of the 
matter of each chapter ; and the last pages are taken up with an index 
of names filling eight compact columns—to wit, the names of the 
writers and thinkers, ancient and modern, whom Father Morris quotes 
to illustrate the doctrine of his brilliant author. Noone can examine 
this index without being enticed to turn back to certain pages in 
which various authors are quoted. Besides hundreds who are cited 
only once, we notice that, after Pascal himself, those with the largest 
number of references after their names are Sir Isaac Newton, 
St. Augustine, Dante, Voltaire, St. Paul, Kant, Hegel, Cardinal 
Newman, and 8t. Thomas. Some of these of course are quoted in 
order to be refuted. The work must have cost its author much 
earnest labour, and it is one of the most valuable and interesting 
of recent additions to our literature. 


4. The Life of Saint Hugh of Lincoln. By Herbert Thurston, 8.J. 
(London: Burns and Oates), 

We have omitted the statement on the title-page that this Life has 
been “translated from the French Oarthusian Life and edited with 
large additions,”’ by Father Thurston ; because it has grown in Father 
Thurston’s hands into a substantially original work. It is the ninety- 
ninth volume of the Quarterly Series which the English Jesuits have 
maintained at a high level even since the death of its illustrious 
founder, Father Coleridge; and it is also one of the most valuable, 
the largest, and necessarily dearest of the whole Series. The most 
ancient and the newest authorities have been studied with great care, 
and all available light is thrown upon the history of the Saint and his 
times. A fine portrait of the holy Bishop from a painting in the 
National Gallery is placed in front; and the last twenty-five pages are 
most profitably filled with a minute and careful index, which renders 
more manageable the abundant stores of erudition which an uoname 


448 The Irish Monthly. 


The minute analysis of each of these chapters in the table of contents 
at the beginning of the volume almost reconciles us to the absence of 
an index at the end. 

The first Saint whose life is given is St. Augustine, translated by 
E. Holt from the French of M. Hatzfeld, which is effectively intro- 
duced to us not only by Father Tyrrell’s up-to-date Preface, but by a 
letter from Cardinal Perraud. Familiar as is the story of the son of 
Monica, there is a good deal of freshness and originality in the 
manner in which it ie set forth in this pleasantly produced volume, 
the second part of which gives a clear account of St Augustine’s 
philosophical and theological teachings. The new series has begun 
well. 

8. Life of Saint Stephen Harding, Abbot of Citeaux, and Founder of 
the Custercian Order. By J.D. Dalgairns. (London and Leamington : 
Art and Book Company), 

This is the first volume of an excellent reprint of the famous series 
of ‘‘ Lives of the English Saints,” which was edited by John Henry 
Newman at the very end of his Anglican life. The writers—Faber, 
Dalgairns, Coffin, &.—all became Catholics except Mark Pattison. 
The writer of the present Life is the Oratorian, Father Dalgairns, the 
most gifted of the illustrious band after Newman and Faber. The 
editor of the reprinted series, Father Thurston, has added brief notes 
all through, full of accurate and painstaking erudition. Each volume 
of the series is produced very tastefully in cloth at the net price of 
half-a-crown. 

9. “The Eve of the World’s Tragedy, or the Thoughts of a 
Worm,” is called by the author, Mr. Louis H. Victory, of Dublin 
(who is his own Publisher), a parable-dream of Gethsemane; and 
the extract from Emerson with which he dedicates it “ to Laura ”— 
first used for that purpose in Adelaide Procter's ‘‘Legends and 
Lyrics ’’—implies that he considers his work a poem. It is, indeed, 
poetry rather than prose. The conception of it, and its aim, feeling 
and spirit, are good and praiseworthy; but many of the expressions 
are daring and inaccurate, and the execution inadequate. It would 
need the author of ‘‘The Dream of Gerontius,” if not of “ Paradise 
Lost,” to carry out such a design. We do not like to see subjects so 
awful mooted in a phantasy of fifteen short pages. 

10. James Duffy & Uo., Limited, of 15 Wellington Quay, Dublin, 
have issued a new edition of Edward Hay’s “History of the Irish 
Insurrection of 1798.” An appendix of nearly a hundred pages gives 
a number of documenta which chiefly regard Mr. Hay’s connection with 
the Rebellion. 

The same firm has sent us a little book of a very different kind— 





Notes on New Books. 4-49 


“ Stations of the Cross, with Instructions, Practical Decrees, and 
Devotions for this Holy Exercise,” by the Rev. Jarlath Prendergast, 
O.8.E. It is the fullest and most fully authorised treatise that we 
know of in English on the subject of this most solid devotion which 
any sincere Christian might profitably practise. 

11. The Spous# of Christ, or the Church of the Cructfied. By the 
Very Rev. James Canon Casey, P.P. (Dublin; James Duffy & Co.) 

This “most recent of Canon Casey’s numerous poetical volumes 
seems to have been published more than a year ago, and we can 
hardly believe that our notice of it can have been so long deferred. 
However, lest such an omission should have occurred, we may call 
attention to this ‘‘ Dogmatic and Historic Poem,” by the Pastor of 
Athleague, Co. Roscommon. The first part treuts very effectively of 
all the Notes of the True Church in the metre of ‘‘The Hind and 
Panther,’’ in which metre Canon Casey is as skilful and as much at 
home as “Glorious John” himself. The second part is ‘‘ historical,” 
recounting in the same heroic couplet as much as the poe: can crush 
into fifty pages of ecclesiastical history between St. Peter and the 
first St. Anthony. We are sure that this pious and learned Muse will 
please, instruct, and edify many readers. 

We have received at the last moment a third und enlar,ed edition, 
of ‘‘ Paddy Blake’s Sojourn among the Soupers” which has long been 
out of print. Itis a very effective exposure of the vile and cruel 
folly of venal Proselytism. Canon Casey has added mauy ballads 
and songs on the same subject, well adapted to warn the people 
against all such assaults upon their faith. 

12. Sarsfield at Limerick and other Poems. By John Paul Dalton. 
(Cork: Guy & Co.). 

The printing and get-up of this little volume of less than fifty 
pages reflect credit on the taste and skill of the local printers. Mr. 
Dalton’s merits as a poet are, perhaps, rather negative than positive. 
His topics and his tone are poetical, but there are few lines that are 
apt to linger in the memory. ‘Gerald Griffin” is the poem that 
pleases us best; but knowing and feeling as he evidently does the 
pathetic beauty of Griffin’s life and character, Mr. Dalton might have 
made more of his theme. 

The same firm issues a new edition of a very different sort of 
work—“ The Child of Mary before Jesus abandoned in the Taber- 
nacle.” This issue completes the 80th thousand. What book of 
verse will reach that figure ? 

18. Messrs. Burns and Oates, of London, have published in a neat 
sixpenny booklet a spiritual instruction to working men and women, 
by Father Reginald Butler, O.P., to which he has given the title of 

Vou. xsxw. No 302 32 


460 The Irish Monthly. 


“ A Good Practical Catholic,” and which Cardinal Vaughan recom- 
mends in a kind and cordial letter. Happy the working man or 
woman who puts into practice the instructions contained in these 
forty simple pages. 

14. The ['hilosophy of Law: An Argument for tts Recognitson by our 
Universities. By William P. Coyne, M.A., Barrister-at-Law ; Fellow 
of the Royal University of Ireland; Professor of Political Economy 
and Jurisprudence, University College, Dublin. (Dublin: Browne & 
Nolan, Limited). 

This is an extremely valuable essay on the teaching of jurispru- 
dence to tho law students uf Universities. Mr. Coyne is of opinion 
that the analytical jurisprudence of such writers as Bentham and 
Austin, basod as it is on pure utilitarianism, might easily prove 
dangerous speculation for students untrained in philosophy; and he 
advocates a course of the Philosophy of Law, such as is to be found 
in the treatise of Suarez De Legibus, as a salutary antidote. We 
earnestly commend the pamphlet to those interested in the higher 
education of Catholics Brief as it is, it shows a wide and sure know- 
ledge of the subject ; and its literary form is excellent. 

15. The first Centenary of ’98 is rapidly passing over ; and it will 
be more advantageous toa book designed specially for this year 
to be noticed now briefly though it only reaches us when going to 
press. It comes frum the young and enterprising firm of Moran and 
Co., of Aberdeen: ‘‘ Stories of the Iiish Rebellion,” by J. J. Muran, 
author of ‘‘ I:ieh Stew” and mauy other cullections of Irish sketches, 
chiefly humorous. Tho present stories are full of dramatic incident 
racily told. I fear ' The Vocation of St. Aloysius’’ will read a little 
tamely ufter them. It also comes from the sane Firm—a drama in 
three acts, translated by a priest from the Italian of Father Boero, 8.J. 
Probably the most skilful translator could not have adapted it to our 
notions of an acting play, especially as the simple incident on which 
it turns is well known and leaves nothing to surprise or interest. 


( 451 ) 


THE DRUMMER BOY. 


H*® gay little coat was braided with gold, 
It fitted as tight as could be, 
He hadn’t a fear as he buttoned it on, 
é“ For what does it matter?’ said he, 
‘To-morrow is always the same as to-day.” 
So he drummed aud whistled and went on his way. 


“ We're to march to the front,’’ said the sergeant grim, 
“ For they say there's a chance of war, 

“ And glory, my lad !” but the drummer-boy smiled, 
And his song was the same as before; 

‘‘ To-morrow has always been just like to-day, 

‘© We shall drink, and whistle, and march on our way.” 


The battle waxed fierce through the livelong day, 
Till the sky with the noise was rent; 

Yet while they were storming with shot and with shell, 
‘The drummer-boy hummed as he went. 

é“ You will find that to-morrow is just as to-day— 

‘© We shall fight, and whistle, and march on our way.” 


And the sunset drooped on the smoky field, 
As the night crept over the hill, 

But the drummer-boy lay by his broken drum, 
With a face that was white and still. 

For the angel who carried his soul away, 

Had whispered ‘‘ To-morrow is not as to-day.” 


Auicg M. Morgan, 


( 452 ) 


PIGEONHOLE PARAGRAPHS. 


I have reason to believe—as editors sometimes say when they 
are perfectly certain—that the ‘‘ M.’’ who narrated the following 
incident in that clever London weekly, The Outlook, is the poet 
who celebrates “ Buttercups” in another page of our present 
Number. 


In the raw days of February I happened to be duck-shooting 
along the coast in the extreme north-west of Ireland. I fired at 
and killed a duck which, falling into the sea about a dozen yards 
out, floated motionless in, as well as I could judge, two or three 
feet of water. Having no dog, I must needs retrieve for myself 
if I were to get the bird, so, taking off my boots and socks, I 
started to wade out. For the first few steps it was like walking 
through open razors. Presently I found myself sinking in soft 
mud, and before [ was half-way out the water was well above my 
knees ; so, willy-nilly, I had to say good-bye to the duck, and 
make for dry land again. 


Now I wasina pickle. My feet were numbed with cold and 
black with mud; I was three miles from my hotel, and fully half 
that distance from the main road—the tourist’s road. 1 looked 
about to see if there were any house in sight; fortunately there 
was—about a hundred and fifty yards off—a thatched cabin of 
the type peouliar to the West of Ireland. Shouldering my gun 
and picking up my boots and sooks, I made for the house and 
knocked. 


The door was opened by a girl—or woman—of eighteen or 
twenty. She was uoshod, and her clothing—though clean and 
not ragged—was evidently insufficient for the bitter weather. 
Want had made her as fragile-looking as the most fashionable 
young lady might desire to be in the days when it was held a 
baseness to seem robust. Seeing my plight, she smiled, but it 
was a kindly smile, and I went on to explain. She only laughed 
and shook her head, thus giving me to understand that English 
was foreign to her. However, as she held the door open invit- 


Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 453 


ingly, I took heart of grace and went in. 

It was a large, bare kitchen, but the white-washed walls were 
clean and the earthen floor was dry and well swept. In the 
middle of a wide hearth glowed a tiny fire—just a few turf 
embers; and near the fire sat an old, old woman—the girl’s 
grandmother doubtless—knitting. There was no sign of man 
about. 

The old woman, turning her head, greeted me with the same 
kindly smile, and said a few words in Irish to the girl, who 
thereupon placed a rush-bottomed chair near the fire and 
beckoned me to it. Then she filled a kettle with water and 
slung it on a hook over the fire, which she replenished with an 
armful of the precious turf. After a while she brought a wooden 
tub, half full of clear water, close to me, into which she poured 
the hot water from the kettle. I plunged my grimy legs in and 
felt grateful. A big piece of soap, placed in a saucer near at 
hand, completed the toilet preparations. 

While I was scrubbing myself, the old woman and the girl 
again spoke in Irish for a while, after which the girl went into 
an inner room and, just as I was looking about for something to 
dry myself with, returned with a clean blouse in her hand which 
—rather shamefacedly—she handed me. It was evidently her 
Sunday jacket—a poor cotton thing, but perfectly spotless. 

I shook my head, objecting, but she pressed it on me, while 
between them—laughing all the time as if it were a good joke— 
they managed to muster up English enough to make me under- 
stand that they were sorry they had no clean towel to offer, and 
that the girl could easily wash the jacket again, and have it 
ready for Mass next day, Sunday. So, greatly to their satisfac- 
tion, I took the blouse and dried my legs with it. 

Going away, I tried to slip a couple of shillings into the girl’s 
hand, feeling like a barbarian while doing so. The offer was 
refused a hundred times more gracefully than it was made, and I 
started for home thinking that this was about the best bit of 
practical Christianity that had ever come in my way. 

w * * 

I will steal the following sonnet by Rosa Mulholland from 
The Irish Rosary of last month, correcting one evident misprint, 
The feast that it refers to, The Visitalion, is celebrated on the 
second day of July. Hence the date of its publication :— 


451 The Irish Monthly. 


Serenely fair the Maid of Nazareth, 
Like dove in flight, pursues her upward way, 
To where the low hills make the distance grey, 
And ‘mid their greenness waits Elizabeth, 
Expectant of her coming whose sweet breath 
Such wonder-words into her ear shall say 
As turn world-darkness to eternal day, 
And ring with silver peal the knell of death. 


Now when the sun his path-of fire has trod, 
And lengthening shadows strew the desert sand, 
Two women sit upon the green hill aod 
And talk of men down there who sin and weep, 
And walk despairing, and are sad in sleep, 
Unknowing yet Redemption is at hand ! 


* * * 


“ Between the pale fingers of Alphonse Daudet, as he lay on 
the bed of death, there was a crucifix and a chapel. ¢ (rosary beads). 
In the presence of the dreadful mystery of death, it is the instinct 
and tradition of all families, in which throbs still some religious 
feeling, to place these sacred objects on the remains of beings that 
are dear. But in the works of Alphonse Daudet you may look in 
vain, it must be confessed, for a single page betraying a concern 
for the future life. Scepticism and indifference are the malady 
of contemporary minds; and he also who writes these lines was, 
until very recently, affected by it. To-day, when suffering 
which he can not possibly think of with sufficient gratitude have 
restored him to his religious faith and eternal hopes, he ie pained 
at the thought that the glorious friend whose loss he deplores did 
not share this faith and these hopes, and he can hardly resign 
himself to believing it.” 

This passage (says Literature, in quoting Francois Coppée) is 
important as the first really clear announcement of Coppée’s 
“conversion.” His articles in Le Journal have left no doubt 
that the “sufferings” of the last year had worked a change in 
him; and it is curious to note how touchingly he refors to this 
“conversion,” as if he felt that his past had been wasted, and 
that only a fow days now remain to him in which to stand up and 
“ testify.” 


w # s 
An eminent art oritic has prepared a list of the “‘ twelve 
greatest paintings in the world.” The list includes :—Raphael’s 











Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 455 


b 


‘Transfiguration’ and ‘ Sistine Madonna,’ Michael Angelo’s 
“Last Judgment,” Da Vinci’s “ Last Supper,” Domenichino’s 
é Last Communion of St. Jerome,’ Rubens’ “ Descent from the 
Cross,” Volterra’s ‘“‘ Descent from the Cross,” Guido’s “ Beatrice ” 
and ‘‘ Aurora,” Titian’s ‘‘ Assumption,’”’ Correggio’s “ La Notte,” 
Murillo’s ‘‘ Immaculate Conception.” It will be nuticcd that all 
these paintings are by Catholic artists, and nearly all the subjects 
are biblical. 
* * * 

I chance to know that the writer of the following, which is 
taken from an old Spectator, was no less a person than Mr. Justice 
O’ Hagan, the translator of “ The Song of Roland.” ‘Nothing 
can be more true than what you say, that the most amusing 
misprints arise from what may be termed ‘ printers’ sense,’ which 
is far worse than printers’ nonsense. In an eloquent and highly- 
wrought passage of Dr. Newman’s lectures on ‘ University 
Education,’ he says: “ You may cull flowers for your banquet.” 
This was printed, ‘ You may cull flowers for your bouquet.’ An 
Irish ecclesiastica] student who went to finish his course of theology 
in Spain sent a glowing account of his journey in letters to a 
newspaper in his native town. ITis last letter concluded thus: ‘I 
can write no more, for before my vision rise the gorgeous domes 
of Salamanca.’ The printer gave his euthusiasm another direction, 
for he printed ‘dames’ instead of ‘domes,’ to the horror of the 
Bishop, who at once prohibited the publication of any further 
letters from that distracted young man.”’ 

* * * 

To a young midshipman called Lane the gallant Lord 
Collingwood addressed an admirable letter of advice, of which the 
following is the chief part. How very true is the suspicion 
expressed about those who are very partioular not to go beyond 
their precise share of duty ! 


‘You may depend on it, that it is more in your own power than tn 
any one’s else to promote both your comfort and advancement. A strict and 
unwearied attention to your duty, and a complaisant and respectful 
behaviour, not only to your superiors, but to everybody, will ensure 
you their regard, and the reward will surely come, and I hope soon, 
in the shape of preferment; but sf sí should not, 1 am sure you have too 
much good sense to let disappointment sour you. Guard carefully againat 
letting discontent appear in you; it ás sorrow to your friends, a triumph to 


456 The Irish Monthly. 


your competitors, and cannat be productswve of any good. Conduct yourself 
so as to deserve the best that can come to you; and the consciousness of 
your own proper behaviour will keep you in spirits, if it should not 
come. Let it be your ambition to be foremost in aliduty. Du not 
be a nice observer of turns, but for ever present yourself ready for 
everything, and if your officers are not very inattentive men, they 
will not allow the others to impose more duty on you than they should; 
but J never knew one who was exact not to ds more than his share of duty, 
who would not neglect that, when he could do ao without fear of punishment. 
I need not say more to you on the subject of svbriety, than to recom- 
mend to you the continuance of it as exactly as when you were with 
me. Every day affords you iustances of the evils arising from 
drunkenness. Were a mau as wise as Solumon, and as brave as 
Achilles, he would still be unworthy of trust if he addicted himself to 
grog. He may make a drudge, but a respectable officer he can never 
be; for the doubt must always remain, that the capacity which God 
has given him.will be abused by intemperance. Young men are 
generally introduced to this vice by the company they keep; but do 
you carefully guard against ever submittiug yourself to be the 
companion of Jow, vulgar, and dissipated men ; and hold it asa maxim, 
that you had better be alone than in mean company. Let your 
oompanions be euch as yourself, or superior; for the worth of a man 
will be always rated by that of his company. You do not find pizeons 
associate with hawks, or lambs with bears; and it is as unnatural for 
a good man te be thecompanion of blackguards. Read.— Let me 
charge you to read. Study books that treat of your profession, and 
of history. Thus employed, you will always be in good company.” 














SEPTEMBER, 1808. 





DAVIE MOORE’S “LIFTING,” 


TÍ the west of Scotland the memory of two Father Dalys is 

dear to the hearts of the people. Father Peter Daly; 
shrewd, keen of humour, a “ fine man’ (and greater praise than 
these two words comprise the Lowlander cannot bestow) a “ fine 
man,” and—this should have come first—with such a devotion to 
the Blessed Sacrament, that, ‘‘ whatever he askit he got,” the 
people, crossing themselves, whisper to you still, “ a body kent 
the Lord hearkened Father Peter,” 

Then Father John, Father Peter’s nephew and successor, shy, 
silent, reserved, and “ a gran”’ scholar wi’ the Latin at his finger- 
en’s, and such a wealth of books that, when a parishioner came 
for a “word,” a chair had to be cleared of his treasures before the 
visitor could be asked to sit down. 

“He kent a heap, and the Bishop set a store by him” [thought 
a great deal of him] sums up Father John’s virtues asa rule, 
though I have heard it added, that, “for buik-learnin’ neither 
Minister nor Dominie cud haud a can’le t” him.” 

But Father John, if he did not inspire the love his uncle had 
done, was an honest and respected priest, and a faithful client of 
the Sacred Heart as became the namesake of the Apostle “ Jesus 
loved.” 

It was towards the end of Father Peter’s days that the 
collection in aid of funds to repair the chapel was begun. 

é“ We'll have the roof about our heads,” the Father had said 
one Friday after Benediction when he was having a chat with 
two of his parishioners. 

Vou. xxv1. No 303 33 


458 The Irish Monthly. 


“We will that,” John Mitchell, the farmer at Peggiesles, 
returned, with a shake of the head. 

é“ We micht mebbe lift the siller,’’ the third member of the 
little company advanced in a deprecating way. 

The priest, in his turn, shook his head, “there's an old saying, 
Davie, my man, that ‘ ye canna tak’ the breeks (trousers) off a 
Hielandman.’”’ Father Peter quoted the proverb with a smile. 
Who knew better than he the poverty of his flock P 

‘The folk wud do their best,” Davie Moore, he was the 
village shoemaker and clogger, said in the same timid way. 

“You are right there, Davie,’’ the priest returned with 
emphasis, “the people do their best.” There was a kindly 
gleam in his eye as he spoke. 

“ Peggieslea an’ me,” the clogger began, but Peggieslea 
interrupted him. 

“I never was ony gude at lifting’ (the local word for 
collecting), he said, and again shook his head. 

“Aye, aye,” Father Peter chuckled, ‘ we'll make Davie do 
the ‘lifting,’ he’s a heap nearer heaven than most of us, honest 
man!” This was an old joke of the Father’s, Davie measuring 
some six foot four in his stocking soles, and a juke that made Davie 
always smile. 

é“ Aye, au” Davie’s warm,” Peggieslea returned, as he took a 
pinch of suuff from the Father’s box. 

Davie smiled in his deprecatory fashion, ‘‘ the Lord’s no’ that 
ill t? me ” he said. 

it was true enough that David Moore was, by no means, 
among the poorest of Father Peter’s congregation; he was single, 
sober, frugal, and a good craftsman, indeed his work had a certain 
reputation in the country-side among both farmers and labourers, 
and even the Laird gave him an occasional order fora pair of 
shooting boots, as his father had done before him. 

é“ Well, Davie, it’s settled ?’’ Father Peter asked, a twinkle in 
his eye, as good evenings were being said. 

“If Peggieslea ’ll no,” Davie began, but again the farmer 
interrupted him. 

“Na, na, I ll ha'e nocht t’ do wi’ the lifting,” he scratched 
his head. 

é Well, well,” the priest said, “then, Davie, it’s settled P” 

“aye, it’s sawttled,” Davie said in his slow way, and the 


Davie Moore's “ Lafing.” 459 


friends parted. 

David Moore’s brow was drawn together in thought as he 
climbed the hill on which the village stood towards his home. 

Half way up he turned into the “general merchant’s’’ shop 
and asked for a penny account book, “ we'll ha’e a’ things in 
order,” he muttered to himself as he turned over the “ choice ” the 
“merchant” laid before him; then a thought struck him, he 
turned to the shopkeeper. 

“ Mr. MacMath, ye wadna be for gieing Father Peter a trifle 
for the gude o’ the chapel wa’s (walls)?”’ 

The grocer shook his head, but —trade is not good in a little 
country town, the little MaoMaths got through a heap of shoe- 
leather—the “general merchant’s”’ bairns could not run about, 
like their humbler neighbours, bare-footed, and Davie Moore was 
never pressing, he would even take payment in kind—tea, sugar, 
oatmeal, a keg of herring, a cheese; after a moment’s hesitation, 
the man dived his hand into the till and brought out half-a- 
crown. 

“ Atween you an’ me, Davie,” he winked, ‘‘atween you an’ 
me.” 

“ Aye, atween you an’ me,” Moore returned as he took the 
offered ooin, 

“ Gin it's t” gang i’ the book ye'l] say ‘a freen’ (friend) ?” the 
merchant asked anxiously. He was a prominent member of one 
of the many dissenting bodies of the district. 

“ Aye, we'll say ‘a freen,’’’ Davie returned, and borrowing 
a pen, made his first entry. 

“ The lifting ’1l no’ be easy,” the shopkeeper said. 

“ No, the lifting ’ll no ke easy,” Davie said, “ the folk’s poor,” 
and, perhaps, next to Father Daly himself, no one knew better 
than David Moore what a task he had set before him, but—St. 
Mary’s chapel, roofless ! 

Once at home, Davie sat down solemnly, and began making 
out a list of the persons from whom he might expect a mite, and 
that finished, he brought out—from a recess at the back of his 
box-bed an old leathern pocket-book or case, and taking out its 
contents spread them out before him. 

It wouldn’t do for him, Davie Moore, to be giving too much, 
he told himself, it might frighten, maybe, poorer folks, and it 
wouldn’t look well to give more than Peggieslea, who had 





460 The Irish Monthly. 


promised his pound. Davie was in what he would have 
called himself, “ a quandary,” when suddenly his face lighted, 
and he gave a little chuckle as he nodded at the first entry in his 
book, “gin there's ae freen, there can be anither,” he said, and 
chuckled again. 

“IT wasn’t thinking, Davie, that His Holiness at Rome had so 
many friends in D ,’ Father Peter said, a twinkle in his 
keen blue eye, when Davie, at the end of a month or two, shewed 
his account book. 

Davie shuffled from one foot to another, he was no adept at 
deception, he saw Father Peter had found him out, and his answer 
came in all simplicity, “I was feared o’ discouragin’ the folk, an’ ” 
there was a little pause, “it’s a promise like t’ Her,” and he 
nodded his head sidewise towards the picture of the Virgin that 
hung above Father Peter’s mantelpiece. 

‘Well, Davie, man, you have done well,” the Father said, 
é but it’s not onesummer’s ‘lifting’ that "Il roof the chapel,’ here 
came a little sigh. “ Well, Rome, we know, wasn’t built in a day: 
not in a Presbyterian village anyway,’ the Father laughed. 

Father Peter was right, another summer came, and—I am 
almost ashamed to say it—a piece of tarpaulin that once had 
covered Peggieslea corn-stacks was in requisition to keep the rain 
out of the vestry-—the ‘ lifting ’ among such a congregation could 
not but be slow; but neither priest nor ‘lifter’ lost heart. 

é We'll manage it, Davie,” the Father always said. 

With August came a bit of luck, a Catholic took some shooting 
in the neighbourhood, and Davie, summoning all his courage, 
called on him, alter his work one day, and was rewarded with a five 
pound note. The ‘lifting’ was getting on! 

It was a still, sultry evening, and Davie, when he got home, 
after making himself a cup of tea, took out the precious leather 
pocket-book to add the day’s collection to its treasures. The 
money was nearly all in one pound notes, notes given him by his 
friend, the “general merchant,” in exchange for the shillings and 
sixpences so slowly gathered, but making, already, a little packet. 

One, two, three, Davie counted, though he knew the sum total 
well enough, thirteen pound odd, a big sum to be got together in 
a place like D., even in a twelvemonth. 

He had just put the notes back into their envelope before oon- 
signing them to the pocket-book, when a knook came to the door. 











Davie Moore'a “ Lifting.’ 461 


“ Davie, man, Davie, are ye there P” The speaker was an old 
Catholic woman who lived in a cottage facing the chapel. 
“ Davie, man, are ye there? Father Peter’s been flung out o’ the 
Crosskey’s gig, an’ they’re sayin’ his leg’s broke.” 

In a second Davie was flying down the street, he knew what 
Mrs. Pagan, the priest’s housekeeper, was, when her nerves, as she 
put it, were “upset,” and had he not nursed Father Peter single- 
handed through his attack of pleurisy two years before ? 

Davie was breathless as, the Presbytery reached, he took the 
short cut through the chapel into the house, but even in his 
haste he stopped for a moment before the Lady altar, and blew 
out a smouldering candle, inwardly anathematising Mrs. Pagan 
as he did it, for a “ careless limmer.”’ 

Father Peter was an old man and heavy. There were other 
hurts besides the broken leg, and a few anxious days followed, 
during which Davie never left his side, while Mrs. Pagan sat in 
her kitchen, her apron to her eyes, pouring out her griefs and her 
grievances to any gossip who would listen. 

Father John, Father Peter’s nephew, sent by the Bishop, 
would soon bethere. Father John, with his “ Revalenta”’ and his 
“ways, and how could she, Mrs. Pagan, put up with either at 
such a time? and with, what was more, Davie Moore in the liouse, 
not but what Davie was a quivt and sensible man, but—he was 
always another mouth to feed. 

The night before Father John’s expected arrival had come, 
Mrs. Pagan had forgotten her troubles in sleep, Father Peter was 
sleeping too—under an opiate, and Davie was sitting by his side, 
ready, when the Father should awake, for any service required, 
handy as a woman. 

The moon was not up, but it suddenly struck Davie that the 
night was not dark, that indeed a curious light, or gleam, came 
through the corner of the ill-fitting window-blinds, and—yee, 
surely—there were unaccustomed noises, for midnight, on the 
street, voices, cries, the patter of passing feet. 

Gently, on his stocking solcs, Davie crept to the window, and 
drew the blind aside, half way up the street there was a glare, a 
blaze, and against the flames were figures, figures hurrying to and 
fro. Davie started—impossible—it could not be, but—yes—no 
house but his own stood so far back from the street, it was his 
home that was burning. 


462 The Irish Monthly. 


Davie looked at Father Peter sleeping heavily after his 
draught, but muttering through the sleep now and then; the 
doctor had said he might sleep like that till morning, he must call 
up Mrs. Pagan and run up the street and save leather and 
odds and ends of furniture had been in Davie Moore’s mind, and 
then came another recollevtion—the “lifting!” The “ lifttng” 
in its paper envelope lying, as he had left it the night of Father 
Peter’s aceident, on the table. 

As he stood, almost stunned for a moment, a knock came to 
the Presbytery door, that made poor Father Peter start, and turn 
his head from side to side, a summons to Davie. 

“ A spark on the thatch, we're thinkin’” the bearer of ill 
news explained, as side by side, the two men hurried up the street 
‘“onyway, the fire has ta’en the roof, an’ ye’Jl no save a steek 
(stick) Davie, man, I’s feared.”’ 

A steek! The “lifting ” was all Davie cared about, if he 
could save that, but at the instant there was a shout from the 
ever-swelling crowd, a shout, a cry to the nearer on-lookers to 
stand back, the flames seemed, for a moment, to mount like a 
pyramid to the sky, and, with a crash, the roof had fallen in, and 
Davie, sick and giddy, was holding on to his companion for 
support, the next moment he had burst into tears, house, HOME, 
leather, tools, the '' sing,” all were gone. 

A room could be found to work in, the leather, the tools— 
Davie was known as a man that could be trusted—could be 
replaced, but the thirteen pound odd, the thirteen pounds 
seventeen and six. Davie sobbed like a child. His own fault, too. 
Why had he not, like a sensible man, banked the money instead 
of “ haining ” (saving) it up in that way, just that he might look 
at it from time to time. What would Father Peter, what would 
Peggieslea, what would the other folk who had trusted him with 
their money think—say P What would Our Lady P but— 
with that thought—the first ray of comfort came to Davie’s breast, 
Our Lady knew, if no one else did, that every bit of the “lifting,” 
and “‘ haining ” tuo, had been for her. 

It was not till Father Peter had been carried down stairs one 
day by Father John and Davie, that he was told of the loss of the 
“lifting.” 

é“ Well, well,” the Father said, and lifted, for a moment, his 
ayes to heaven. 














Davie Moore's * Lifting.” 463 


“ An’ me lippening (trusting) it a’ to her,” Davie said, as he 
looked, it might be said, reproachfully at the picture of Our Lady 
that hung, as we have already said, above Father Peter’s mantel- 
piece. | 

é I never lifted a penny,” he went slowly on, with a shy look 
at Father John, of whose solemn ways he stood a little in awe, 
“that I didna count it to her afore the altar,” he sunk his voice at 
the last words. 

* Ah,” the old twinkle came to Father Peter’s eyes. “ That 
accounts for the chink-chink that disturbed mo at my prayers. 
Davie, you’ve many a distraction of your priest’s to answer for.”’ 

Davie blushed. ‘ She was in her rechts to see it a,” he went 
on, and if the voice had its usual deprecatory ring, there was 
firmness in it too. ‘‘She was in her rechts (rights) t’ see it a’, an’ 
she saw it, every bawbee, an’ I didna think it o’ her.” Again he 
turned reproachful eyes towards the picture. 

é“ Come, come, Davie,’’ Father Peter remonstrated, “ you must 
not be too hard on Our Lady,” but his face was very gentle as he 
looked at the tall shoemaker. 

“I never thocht it o’ Her,” Davie repeated. 

é Well, well, she'll find it for you yet.” Father Peter glanced 
a little anxiously at his nephew. Father John was but young, 
and he might—Sather Peter saw the expression in his face—be 
inclined to improve the occasion, by preaching Davie a little 
homily on resignation. 

“It's time yer Reverence was back in bed, it’s weel there's 
someyin in the hoose with sense.” Mrs. Pagan had opened the 
parlour-door and was eyeing first Father John, and then Davie, 
with severity. 

“ Well, well,” Father Peter said, “there's nothing like 
obedience,” He took a pinch of snuff and was carried off to his 
room. 

“ You must not be too hard on Our Lady, Davie,” Father Peter 
whispered when, half-an-hour later, he was settling down on his 
pillow. 

Davie looked at him. ‘I’m awa’ t’ the chapel t’ gie Her a bit 0’ 
my mind,”’ he said. 

Father John would have spoken, but Father Peter laid his 
hand on hisarm. “ Away with you, then, Davie,”’ he said, “ and 
don’t forget the two poor sinners here.” 


464 The Irish Monthly, 


Father John was still at his office, Father Peter was just falling 
into his first sleep, when Davie opened the door. He was very 
white as he crossed the floor and stood by Father Peter’s side. 

é“ What is it, Davie? what isitP” No words were needed 
to make Father Peter divine that something had happened ; he 
raised himself on his pillows. 

é“ What is it, Davie, what is it P” 

Father John put down his book and turned to the pair. 

“It's the Ufting,” Davie cried, and held out a stiff, white 
envelope towards the priest. 

For a moment no one spoke, and then Davie went on, “it’s 
the lifting, an’ I min’ it a’ noo. I had the envelope i’ my han’ the 
nicht they fetchit me t’ yer reverence.” 

“ Yes, yes,” Father Peter said, “but where did you find 
it now P” 

‘© Whaur should I ha’e fun’ it P Davie demanded solemnly. “ At 
the Lady Altar, to be sure, an’ 1’m thinkin’ it’s the last time I'll 
doot Her.’’ He nodded his head significantly. 

“ Yes, yes,” Father Peter said, he was getting impatient. 

“ The way o’t wud be this,” Davie went slowlyon. “I min’ I 
had the bit envelope i’ my han’ whaun Peggie cam’ rinnin’ t’ tell 
me yer reverence had been conpit (upset), an’ I mun ha’e pitten it 
doon t’ blaw the can le oot, yon jade, Mrs. Pagan, had left birnin’, 
an’ there it’s been sinsyne (since).”’ 

“ Certainly,” Father John said, solemnly, “I have seen 
that envelope at the back of the altar every day since I came, 
and—— ” as Father Peter looked at him, “I thought it wasa 
a petition from one of the people.” 

“ Ah, we haven't such advanced ways here,” the Father said, 
and then he turned to the shoemaker, “ I am thinking, Davie, you 
owe Our Lady an amends.” There was a tear as well as a twinkle 
this time in Father Peter’s eye. 

é“ I kenna about Amens,” Davie said, and Father Peter turned 
away his head to smile, “ but, she an’ me understan’ each other 
fine.” 

“ Well, please God, my first Mass shall be in her honour,” 
Father Peter said. 

“ Ag mine shall be to-morrow,” said solemn Father John. 


Frances MAITLAND. 





( 465 ) 


ALLAIRE.s 
TB corn is springing close to the sea, 
A balmy breeze blows out of the west; 
Over the top of the cedar-tree, 
The fish-hawk darts to its emerald nest. 


Past glittering lake and grassy lawn, 
(The road a-glimmer with golden light), 
We ride by the bauks of the Manasquan— 
A surfeit of beauty, left and right. 


Beauty of water, where trees above 
Brood o’er a mirrow of trees below ; 
Beauty of bridge, where the sweet, wild dove 
Coos from the arches, soft and slow. 


Beauty of verdure, whose flora fills 
The air with 3ts spicey, exquisite scent ; 
Beauty of valleys and rolling hills, 
Domed by the broad, blue firmament. 


The pine-tree raises its hairy arms, 
The cedar quivers its ragged beard— 
We quit the pike, with its roadside farms, 
And ride through the woodlands, dim and weird. 


O ruined village! O ghostly town! 
O wood-encircled, wild Allaire ! 
Your crumbling walls are dark and brown, 
The weeds grow thick round the tumbling stair. 


Sashless windows, and rovfless rooms; 
The loft laid bare to the open sky, 

The broken doors—where the wild-flower blooms, 
And the great trees thrust their plumes on high— 


Are sadder far than the ruined mill, 
Whose depths in empty darkness yawn, 
Whose works are rusted, whose wheels are still, 
Whose busy toilers are dead and gone; 


For one was the haunt of bustling trade, 
Hard and grim in its narrow strife : 
The other, the nest where Love had made 
A home for the hopes of a human life. 


“ A deserted and ruined village near the coast of northern New Jersey, U.S. A. 


466 The Irish Monthly. 


Where are the feet that trod these floors ? 

The eyes that flashed from the casement’s shade ? 
The hands that opened and closed the doors ? 

The voices that rang through yon rooms decayed ? 


Crumbled to dust, like these broken walls— 
Their loves and their lives no more their own ; 

Fled, like a dream, from these ghostly halls— 
Their very name is a thing unknown. 


O ruined village! O phantom town! 
O grim, gaunt preacher, wild Allaire ! 

A sermon is yours in each mouldering stone, 
Your breath is full of the musk of prayer : 


And this is your text: ‘As these have been, 
So ye are now, who soon shall be 

Dust and decay, Ah! then, begin 
To live, not for time, but Eternity !”’ 


ELEANOR (0. Donne. ty. 


THE HUNDREDFOLD OF THE DEVOUT LIFE. 
A SPIRITUAL ESSAY. 
By FATHER THomas N. Burke, O.P. 


I one of the earliest years of this Magazine, its Editor tried to 

enlist among its contributors his kind friend Father Thomas 
Burke, 0.P., who then seemed to be only midway through his 
brilliant career, though he was in reality not very far from the 
end of it. To the urgent editorial entreaties the great Dominican 
replied that he had given up entirely the use of the pen, not 
having written anything since the address on O'Connell in 
Glasnevin cemetery. 

The nearest approach that Father Burke made to the composition 
of a set essay was the introduction which he furnished to the 
translation of his friend Father Monsabré’s work, “ Gold and Alloy 
in the Devout Life,” which has been out of print for several years. 
With the permission of the Translator, the Publisher, and the 
“ ‘sh Provincial of the Dominicans, we venture (omitting a few 








The Hundredfold of the Devout Life. 467 


phrases) to present this introduction to our readers as a spiritual 
essay by this holy, genial, and gifted Irishman. 
há + * 

In every walk and profession of life the highest successes and 
rewards are reserved for the earnest and energetic. The soldier, 
the lawyer, the physician, the merchant, succeeds and attains 
eminence in his profession or calling in proportion to the devoted- 
ness and energy with which he enters into its spirit, and applies 
himself to its specific requirements; and men speak of such a one 
asa “thorough” soldier, lawyer, &c., as the case may be. A 
man of this stamp may, and, perhaps, ought tooultivate other studies 
and branches of knowledge which have no immediate bearing on his 
profession ; but the studies and duties of that profession will 
always hold first place, and all others are made secondary to them. 
He is, first of all, what he professes to be, although he may be 
much more as well. Now, it is such a man who secures the first 
places and prizes in his profession, because he deserves them, and 
the world is wise and discriminating enough in its distribution of 
rewards. He leaves far behind him the men who were content to 
take matters easily ; who refused to make the sacrifices which he 
made so willingly; who played or idled, whilst he was working 
hard; who were content to escape censure, whilst he aimed at 


distinction; who looked upon the labours and studies which he 
embraced ardently, as a burden or a nuisance—labours and studies 


made easy to himself, and like a second nature, by long habit. 

Even so it is in the service of God. There are prizes in heaven 
as well as on earth. “In my Father’s house there are many 
mansions ;”’- and eleewhere it is written that, “star differeth from 
star in glory.” In seeking and securing the great prize of 
heaven all must be thoroughly in earnest, for Our Divine 
Redeemer said, “ the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and 
the violent bear it away.” It is no easy prize, falling at the feet of 
the careless and indifferent, but a precious inheritance, to be 
grasped and held with a strong hand. ‘‘ Lay hold of eternal life,” 
says the apostle. It is the glorious fruit of much watching and 
prayer and work: a prayer as fervent as if all depended on God ; 
a working as earnest as if all depended on ourselves. 

But even this earnestness, enjoined upon all, has its greater and 
lesser degree; and the greater is called “the devout life,” for 
Jovotion is defined to be the virtue by which the will of man turns 








468 The Irish Monthiv 


itself promptly and energetically to all that concerns the service 
of God. Souls who give themselves to ‘the devout life ” are not 
content with merely saving themeelves; they aim higher, and 
seek perfection. Others may observe the commandments thrcugh 
fear of hell (not, however, without a principle of Divine love); 
devout souls will try to take up the evangelical counsels through 
love of God. Devout souls are not satisfied to escape the terrible 
censure, “ thou wicked and slothful servant ;” they desire to hear 
in all its fulness the grateful voice of their Lord; ‘‘ well done, thou 
good and faithful servant, . . . .  onter thou into the joy 
of thy Lord.” Remembering the beautiful passage of the gospel 
(Mark, iv. 24), where Christ says: “In what measure you shall 
mete, it shall be measured to you again, and more shall be 
given to you,” they seek to give to God “good measure” 
of love and service, measure “ pressed down, and running over ;”’ 
and for the small mustard seed of their service, well they know 
that God will reward them, making the goodly tree of sanctity 
to grow in their souls “‘ greater than all herbs.” 

Nor have such generous souls to wait for the next world to 
receive their great reward, God, in the impatience of His love, 
begins to reward them even here, according to llia promise 
(Mark x. 29); “ And Jesus answering said: Amen I say to you, 
there is no man who hath Jeft house, or brethren, or sisters, or 
father, or mother, or children, or lands for my sake, end for the 
gospel, who shall not receive an hundred times as much, now in 
thistime . . . andin the world to come, life everlasting.” 

What is this hundredfold? Dear reader, it is hard to describe 
it from its very abundance. It must be felt to be known; 
“Taste and see how sweet the Lord is,” says the Psalmist It 
lies in the experience of every soul that has ever made sacrifices 
truly for God. It involves, to begin with, the easy victory over 
the temptations and angry, uoruly passions which form not only 
the danger but the bane of our lives. 

And here lot me observe, that virtue, even in its highest form, 
dces not differ from the most ordinary Christian virtue in kind, 
but only in degree. ‘Thus, for example, the same temptation may 
aseail an ordinary Christian and a saint, and may be overcome by 
both, but, oh ! how differently. The ordinary man barely escar.es 
sin, like a weak swimmer rising laboriously on a wave; the saint 
dushes aside the temptation with a fury of energy, like a strong 





The Hundredfold of the Devout Life. 469 


swimmer, who rises on the crest of the billow with brow erect and 
scarcely smitten with its spray. The very temptation which fain 
would destroy, calls forth from the devout soul, in the energy of 
its resistance, an act of such prompt and strong love of God, as to 
bring down great additional grace, and to raise it hereafter to a 
higher degree of glory. An ordinary Christian may be tempted, 
and resist temptation, but languidly, half regretfully, asif the 
temptation at least had some charm for him. St. Francis Xavier 
was sleeping when the enemy crossed his imagination with a 
momentary temptation. The great saint, even in his sleep, met 
his adversary with such vehemence of repugnance, that he burst 
a blood-vessel in the splendid, though, to him, easy effort. This 
explains to us how it is that Almighty God often rewards his 
saints in a wonderful manner for acts which in themselves appear 
not so very extraordinary. ‘he young novice, St. Thomas 
Aquinas, is tempted in a gross and repulsive form; he snatches 
up a piece of burning wood from the fireplace and drives the 
temptress away. There is nothing extraordinary in this act. It 
is what any ordinary Christian would be expected to do under the 
circumstances, for it was a question of life or death; and yet, God 
sent his angels then and there, who girded the young saint round 
with the cincture of angelic purity, so that he never afterwards 
experienced the slightest temptation of the flesh, and so was enabled 
to become the “ Angelic Dootor.” What was it that brought 
down so great and wonderful a favour from God? It was not 
merely the act of resistance to evil, but much more, the devotion— 
that is to say, the promptness, the energy, the holy anger, spring- 
ing out of strong love for God, with which that act was performed. 

Now, this is the first great blessing of the devout life. The 
devout soul is strong enough to silence if not to destroy, to subdue 
utterly, if not to extinguish the passions; and so to soar above the 
atmosphere of gross temptation, and the danger of mortal sin, 


And yet this spiritual strength, which is the first advantage of - 


the devout life, may also be said to be its last blessing and its 
crown. For it is the result and the action of that love of God 
which ig the perfection of all virtue. The fear of the Lord casteth 
out sin,” it is true; but to drive away temptation as well, to rob 
it of even a momentary attractiveness, so to absorb and purify the 
desires, and sweeten the spiritual tastes of the soul, as to make 
everything sinful appear to us as it is before the eyes of God, 























468 The Irish Monthly 


itself promptly and energetically to all that concerns the service 
of God. Souls who give themselves to “the devout life ” are not 
content with merely saving themeelves; they aim higher, and 
seek perfection. Others may observe the commandments thrcugh 
fear of hell (not, however, without a principle of Divine love) ; 
devout souls will try to take up the evangelical counsels through 
love of God. Devout souls are not satisfied to escape the terrible 
censure, “ thou wicked and slothful servant ;” they desire to hear 
in all its fulness the grateful voice of their Lord; ‘‘ well done, thou 
good and faithful servant, . . . . enter thou into the joy 
of thy Lord.” Remembering the beautiful passage of the gospel 
(Mark, iv. 24), where Christ says: “In what measure you shall 
mete, it shall be measured to you again, and more shall be 
given to you,” they seek to give to God ‘good measure” 
of love and service, measure “ pressed down, and running over ;” 
and for the small mustard seed of their service, well they kaow 
that God will reward them, making the goodly tree of sanctity 
to grow in their souls “‘ greater than all herbs.” 

Nor have such generous souls to wait for the next world to 
receive their great reward. God, in the impatience of His love, 
begins to reward them even here, according to llis promise 
(Mark x. 29); “ And Jesus answering said: Amen I say to you, 
there is no man who hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or 
father, or mother, or children, or lands for my sake, and for the 
gospel, who shall not receive an hundred times as much, now in 
thistime . . . andin the world to come, life everlasting.” 

What is this hundredfold? Dearreader, it is hard to describe 
it from its very abundance. It must be felt to be known; 
‘Taste and see how sweet the Lord is,” says the Pralmist It 
lies in the experience of every soul that has ever made sacrifices 
truly for God. It involves, to begin with, the easy victory over 
the temptations and angry, uoruly passions which form not only 
the danger but the bane of our lives. 

And here lot me observe, that virtue, even in its highest form, 
dces not differ from the most ordinary Christian virtue in kind, 
but only in degree. ‘Thus, for example, the same temptation may 
ascail an ordinary Christian and a saint, and may be overcome by 
both, but, oh ! how differently. The ordinary man barely escares 
sin, like a weak swimmer rising laboriously on a wave; the saint 
dashes aside the temptation with a fury of energy, like a strong 








The Hundredfold of the Devout Life. 469 


swimmer, who rises on the crest of the billow with brow erect and 
scarcely smitten with its spray. The very temptation which fain 
would destroy, calls forth from the devout soul, in the energy of 
its resistance, an act of such prompt and strong love of God, as to 
bring down great additional grace, and to raise it hereafter to a 
higher degree of glory. An ordinary Christian may be tempted, 
and resist temptation, but Janguidly, half regretfully, asif the 
temptation at least had some charm for him. St. Francis Xavier 
was sleeping when the enemy crossed his imagination with a 
momentary temptation. The great saint, even in his sleep, met 
his adversary with such vehemence of repugnance, that he burst 
a blood-vessel in the splendid, though, to him, easy effort. This 
oxplains to us how it is that Almighty God often rewards his 
saints in a wonderful manner for acts which in themselves appear 
not so very extraordinary. ‘he young novice, St. Thomas 
Aquinas, is tempted in a gross and repulsive form; he snatches 
up a piece of burning wood from the fireplace and drives the 
temptress away. There is nothing extraordinary in this act. It 
is what any ordinary Christian would be expected to do under the 
circumstances, for it was a question of life or death ; and yet, God 
sent his angels then and there, who girded the young saint round 
with the cincture of angelic purity, so that he never afterwards 
experienced the slightest temptation of the flesh, and so was enabled 
to become the “ Angelic Dootor.” What was it that brought 
down so great and wonderful a favour from God? It was not 
merely the act of resistance to evil, but much more, the devotion— 
that is to say, the promptness, the energy, the holy anger, spring- 
ing out of strong love for God, with which that act was performed. 

Now, this is the first great blessing of the devout life. The 
devout soul is strong enough to silence if not to destroy, to subdue 
utterly, if not to extinguish the passions; and so to soar above the 
atmosphere of gross temptation, and the danger of mortal sin, 
And yet this spiritual strength, which is the first advantage of - 
the devout life, may also be said to be its last blessing and its 
crown. For it is the result and the action of that love of God 
which is the perfection of all virtue. The fear of the Lord casteth 
out sin,” it is true; but to drive away temptation as well, to rob 
it of even a momentary attractiveness, so to absorb and purify the 
desires, and sweeten the spiritual tastes of the soul, ss to make 
everything sinful appear to us as it is before the eyes of God, 














468 The Irish Monthly 


itself promptly and energetically to all that concerns the service 
of God. Souls who give themselves to “ the devout life ” are not 
content with merely saving themeelves; they aim higher, and 
seek perfection. Others may observe the commandments thrcugh 
fear of hell (not, however, without a principle of Divine love) ; 
devout souls will try to take up the evangelical counsels through 
love of God. Devout souls are not satisfied to escape the terrible 
censure, “thou wicked and slothful servant ;” they desire to hear 
in all its fulness the grateful voice of their Lord; ‘‘ well done, thou 
good and faithful servant, . . . . enter thou into the joy 
of thy Lord.” Remembering the beautiful passage of the gospel 
(Mark, iv. 24), where Christ says: “In what measure you shall 
mete, it shall be measured to you again, and more shall be 
given to you,” they seek to give to God “good measure” 
of love and service, measure “ pressed down, and running over ;” 
and for the small mustard seed of their service, well they know 
that God will reward them, making the goodly tree of sanctity 
to grow in their souls “i greater than all herbs.” 

Nor have such generous souls to wait for the next world to 
receive their great reward. God, in the impatience of His love, 
begins to reward them even here, according to llis promise 
(Mark x. 29); “ And Jesus answering said: Amen | say to you, 
there is no man who hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or 
father, or mother, or children, or lands for my sake, and for the 
gospel, who shall not receive an hundred times as much, now in 
thistime . . . and in the world to come, life everlasting.” 

What is this hundredfold? Dear reader, it is hard to describe 
it from its very abundance. It must be felt to be known; 
é Taste and see how sweet the Lord is,” says the Psalmist It 
lies in the experience of every soul that has ever made sacrifices 
truly for God. It involves, to begin with, the easy victory over 
the temptations and angry, uoruly passions which form not only 
the danger but the bane of our lives. 

And here let me observe, that virtue, even in its highest form, 
dces not differ from the most ordinary Christian virtue in kind, 
but only in degree. Thus, for example, the same temptation may 
assail an ordinary Christian and a saint, and may be overcome by 
both, but, oh ! how differently. The ordinary man barely escayes 
sin, like a weak swimmer rising laboriously on a wave; the saint 
dashes aside the temptation with a fury of energy, like a strong 





The Hundredfold of the Devout Life. 469 


swimmer, who rises on the crest of the billow with brow erect and 
scarcely smitten with its spray. The very temptation which fain 
would destroy, calls forth from the devout soul, in the energy of 
its resistance, an act of such prompt and strong love of God, as to 
bring down great additional grace, and to raise it hereafter to a 
higher degree of glory. An ordinary Christian may be tempted, 
and resist temptation, but Janguidly, half regretfully, asif the 
temptation at least had some charm for him. St. Francis Xavier 
was sleeping when the enemy crossed his imagination with a 
momentary temptation. The great saint, even in his sleep, met 
his adversary with such vehemence of repugnance, that he burst 
a blood-vessel in the splendid, though, to him, easy effort. This 
explains to us how it is that Almighty God often rewards his 
saints in a wonderful manner for acts which in themselves appear 
not so very extraordinary. ‘The young novice, St. Thomas 
Aquinas, is tempted in a gross and repulsive form; he snatches 
up a piece of burning wood from the fireplace and drives the 
temptress away. There is nothing extraordinary in this act. It 
is what any ordinary Christian would be expected to do under the 
circumstances, for it was a question of life or death; and yet, God 
sent his angels then and there, who girded the young saint round 
with the cincture of angelic purity, so that he never afterwards 
experienced the slightest temptation of the flesh, and so was enabled 
to become the “ Angelic Doctor.” What was it that brought 
down so great and wonderful a favour from God? It was not 
merely the act of resistance to evil, but much more, the devotion— 
that is to say, the promptness, the energy, the holy anger, spring- 
ing out of strong love for God, with which that act was performed. 

Now, this is the first great blessing of the devout life. The 
devout soul is strong enough to silence if not to destroy, to subdue 
utterly, if not to extinguish the passions; and so to soar above the 
atmosphere of gross temptation, and the danger of mortal sin, 
And yet this spiritual strength, which is the first advantage of - 
the devout life, may also be said to be its last blessing and its 
crown. For it is the result and the action of that love of God 
which is the perfection of all virtue. The fear of the Lord casteth 
out sin,’ it is true; but to drive away temptation as well, to rob 
it of even a momentary attractiveness, so to absorb and purify the 
desires, and sweeten the spiritual tastes of the soul, as to make 
everything sinful appear to us as it is before the eyes of God, 








474 The Irish Monthly, 


Could I make all its orbit my abode, 
My soul would only find a living grave ; 
Not even all the universe of God 
Could e’er supply the boon for which I crave. 


Above its sphere, in the bright realms beyond, 
Where the true Sun enlightens other skies, 

If I could strip off every earthly bond, 
Perchance my dream I yet might realise. 


There where the living waters ever roll, 

There should I find again all hope and love, 
And that ideal joy of every soul, 

Which here is nameless but is known above. 


Would I might float upon Aurora’s ray 

And rise, sweet End of all my prayers, to Thee. 
Why in this land of exile do I stay ? 

There is no bond between the earth and me. 


Sea! in the fields the zephyr, like a thief, 
Snatches the leaves and bears them on its breast; 
And 1! what am I but a faded leaf ? 
Take me, O winds, and waft me to my rest. 
F. C. Korss. 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 


CHaPrerR XXI. 


MRS. BYRSE’S DISCOVERY. 





How happy is he born and taught, 
That serveth not another's will; 
Whose armour is his honent thought, 

And simple truth his utmost skill. 


Srr Hurry Worron. 


T ADIES living in the neighbourhood of Ridingdale might be 
—/ as exclusive as they pleased—and the exclusiveness of some 
of them was to the average mind more amusing than a comic 
paper; the wife of the tenant farmer might ignore the wife of the 
draper, just as the latter refused to know the clog-maker’s spouse ; 
the surgeon’s wife might refuse to sit in any part of the church 








Doings in the Dale. 475 


not tenanted by those who belonged to the Vicarage set, and the 
overpowering gentility of the commeroial traveller’s family could 
throw a positive blight upon Ridingdale middle-class society ; 
but no one could ignore Miss Rippell or withstand the fascinations 
of her shop. The truth is Miss Rippell was indispensable. In 
her establishment there was everything that the feminine mind 
holds dear. The glamour of Berlin wool was there, and the 
bewitchment of embroidery silks. Fanoy work of every kind was 
displayed in the window, an1 cunningly exhibited in various parts 
of the crowded shop. Female prettinesses of every kind forced 
themselves upon a customer’s notice, and husbands had been 
known to threaten emigration if their wives did not promise to 
avoid temptation and Miss Rippell’s. 

But this was only one side of the business. Stationery of 
every shape and size and hue was obtainable, and with it all that 
crowd of quasi-necessary articles that ladies love. Even men had 
been heard to admit that lifein Ridingdale without Miss Rippell’s 
would be a desert; for even though you have a season-ticket on 
the railway, you cannot take a journey of fourteen miles for a bottle 
of gum or a sheet of foolscap. 

So although the wife of Doctor Byrse declared that Ridingdale 
society was impossible, she had not lived at the Hall-farm many 
weeks before she became a constant attendant at Rippell’s. For 
Mrs. Byrse soon divined that there were few things Miss Rippell 
did not know, and no local family history she could not relate in 
detail. ‘The Professor’s wife would, indeed, have made many 
mistakes but for the information she received at the “ Library ’— 
as she always called the Berlin-wool House. 

Mrs. Byrse had a great respect for the Squire of Ridingdale— 
was he not the grandson of Lord Dalesworth ?—but she had 
taken a strong dislike to his wife. Again and again she had 
begged her husband to find out “who the creature was before 
she was married ;” but the Professor, whose biggest cross in life 
was Mrs. Hyrse’s vulgarity, absolutely ignored the request. 

But on the day of the Big Match, when all the “ best ” people 
within easy driving distance of Ridingdale Hall had accepted the 
Squire’s invitation to luncheon, Mrs. Byrse made startling 
discoveries. The Colonel sitting beside her at table found him- 
self relieved of the burden of making conversation by merely 
answering the lady’s questions. 





476 The Irish Monthly 


“ And who is that very distinguished-looking young gentle- 
man sitting next to Hilary P” she had asked. 

é“ Man with single eye-glass, eh ? O, that’s Mrs. Ridingdale’s 
cousin, Lord Dixworth.”’ 

Mrs. Byrse barely checked an exclamation of surprise. 

“ Why, he is the eldest son of the Earl of Truro !” 

“Of course,”’ grunted the Colonel—beginning to feel a little 
bored. 

Mrs. Byrse was silent for a such long time that the Colonel 
forgot her presence and made a very satisfactory luncheon in 
consequence, 

“It was quite too bad of you not to tell me that Mrs. 
Ridingdale was connected with the Truros,”’ said the Professor’s 
wife to Miss Rippell on the following day. 

Miss ltippell answered quite truly that she imagined everybody 
was acquainted with the fact. 

But it connects her with two or three of the noblest families 
in the country,’ persisted Mrs. Byrse, who had not quite 
recovered from her shock of surprise. ‘The Truros are poor 
people, of course; everybody knows that; but the connection—”’ 
Mrs. Byrse lingered lovingly upon the word—‘ is a magnificent 
one.” 

‘‘The Earl has been to Ridingdale several times,” Miss 
Rippell said, ‘‘and before Lord Dixworth went to Oxford he 
always spent some part of his holidays at the Hall.” 

‘This connection accuunts for so very much,” Mrs. Byrse 
continued. ‘I understand now how it is that all those boys are 
so noble-looking, in spite of their patched clothes and the perfectly 
awful things they wear on their feet. I confess that in the 
beginning I was on the point of forbidding all intercourse between 
them and my children.” 

Miss Rippell’s face flushed angrily. Model of politeness and 
good temper as she was—to say a word against the Ridingdales 
in her presence was to becloud her face and provoke a hail-storm 
of words. 

Fortunately for Mrs. Byrse, who was just beginning to realise 
the mistake she had made, Mr, Kittleshot entered the shop, and 
Miss ltippell’s facial storm-cloud had to be cleared awhy. 

“ Yes,” said the millionaire, after a little preliminary chat, 
“it is excellent building weather. My cottages are progressing 











Doings in the Dale. 477 


famously, and the public hall is rising rapidly. I am most anxious 
to make good use of these fine September days, and have just 
ordered the builder to bring more men to Timington. ‘The 
concert-room will certainly be ready for use in November, but í 
am not so sure about the completion of the library and reading 
room.” 

é“ We shall be quite jealous of Timington,” Miss Rippell said 
smilingly. ‘‘ Ridingdale will be duller than ever, once you have 
opened your Institute.” 

é Well,” began Mr. Kittleshot slowly, and with an air of 
mystery, “you must wait a little while. I shall do something for 
Ridingdale, sconer or later. I have an idea in my mind, but it is 
not yet sufficiently developed. I want to talk it over leisurely, 
and in great detail with—with a friend or two. I have a great 
liking for your quiet littlh—town, perhaps I ought to call it, and 
I shall certainly do something—someday. But I must get 
Timington into shape first, you know.” 

“Oh, sir, you have done much for Ridingdale already,” said 
Miss Rippell. “ he many workmen you are employing lodge in 
this town for the most part: indeed they are too numerous to be 
accomodated at Timington.” 

Miss Rippell was thinking also of Mr. Kittleshot’s own 
business transactions in the place, for if he could get what he 
wanted in Ridingdale, he let it be known, he would not send else- 
where. And the wise shopkeepers took care that he did get what 
he wanted. ‘ 

Mrs. Byrse rose from the chair in which she had been sitting— 
the chair close to the counter and with its Lack to the window— 
for nearly an hour. 

‘Don’t let me drive you away,” said Mr. Kittleshot. “A 
man’s buiness is soon done in a place like this: a lady’s is more 
complicated, I know. I could no more match silks or wools than 
I could fly. Hope you are getting on nicely with the 
Ridingdales,” he said, opening the door for Mrs. Byrse. ‘ Your 
boys are very lucky to have such playmates as the Squire’s sons— 
aren’t they now ?”’ 

Mrs. Byrse standing at the shop door was beginning to swim 
in a perfect pool of superlatives in praise of “those dear, sweet 
boys” when, hearing the sound of clogs on the cobbled pavement, 
she turned suddeniy and confronted George and Lance. 


478 The Irish Monthly, 


The two boys had raced the greater part of the way from the 
Hall, and their always rosy cheeks were crimson with exercise and 
heat. 

é Talk of angels '—began Mrs. Byrse. 

“ And you hear the clatter of their clogs,’’—was Lance’s un- 
spoken comment. 

“ What brings you here, you scamps?”’ asked Mr. Kittleshct, 
when Mrs. Byrse had gone. He had taken each of them by the 
forelock, and was gently leading them into the shop, for they had 
shown a certain unwillingness to enter while he was there. 

‘Some foolscap for father,” said Lance, with more hesitation 
than he usually showed : “at least—that’s one thing.” 

‘Well, Miss Rippell, I’ll leave them in your hands while I 
just make out a list of things I want.” 

Miss Rippell greeted the boys warmly. She always said that 
the Squire’s sons brought sunshine into her shop, and that she felt 
its influence even after they had gone. They did not bring much 
else, but Miss Rippell would dearly have liked to refuse their 
ready money, particularly when it was tendered for some article the 
boys wanted for their own use. 

Business was accompanied on the shop-woman’s part by a 
score of enquiries as to the health of the Squire and Mrs. 
Ridingdale, aud the well-being of that numerous family whose 
names Miss Rippell had mastered long ago. But when the big 
bundle of foolscap was handed over the counter, George and Lance 
lowered their voices and began a hurried consultation. Mr. 
Kittleshot, at the other side of the shop, was apparently engaged 
in writing out his list, but he overheard the words “: water- 
colours ”—-'s gold leaf ”—“: not more than sixpence.” 

The last word made him prick his ears, and when he turned 
round he saw Miss Rippell displaying some very small boxes of 
paints, and two or three tiny books of gold leaf. They were 
whispering together now, but the millionaire thought he caught 
the sentence,—‘‘ I’m afraid we can’t have the gold leaf.” A 
coaxing whisper from Miss Rippell followed, but Mr. Kittleehot 
saw the two boys shake their heads in a resolute sort of way as 
George put down his sixpence and placed a very small parcel 
in his jacket pocket. 

“ Not in a hurry, are you P”’ asked Mr. Kittleshot, as the lads 
stopped to bid him “good morning.” “ Couldn’t you just go into 





Doings tn the Dale. ' 479 


Keoggleston’s with me for a few minutes?” Keggleston was the 
Ridingdale confectioner—a person whose goods were in repute. 

The blushing lads thanked their would-be benefactor warmly 
but declared they must get back home as quickly as possible. 
They had scarcely left the shop when Mr. Kittleshot began to 
cross-examine Miss Rippell as to their purchases. The good 
woman was only too pleased to be questioned. 

“ Paint and illuminate, do they? Hum! Wonder if there's 
anything they don’t do. Poor little chaps!’ the millionaire was 
thinking. “ What a miserable thing it must be having to consider 
the laying out of a few coppers!” 

So Miss Rippell had to display her entire stock of artist’s 
materials; the result being that a big parcel was soon on its way 
to Ridingdale Hall, a parcel addressed to ‘‘ Masters George and 
Lancelot.”’ 

“It can just go on jolly well raining for a week now!” 
exclaimed Lance when the parcel was opened. “I wish we 
could paint Mr. K.’s portrait for him, George.” 

* Don’t see why we shouldn't paint his coat of arms,” said the 
artistic but very practical George. ‘It would show him we are 
grateful—wouldn’t it ?” 

“Hold on!” cried Lance excitedly. ‘I have it! Let's give 
him the freedom of Sniggery—in a box. You know that box 
we carved for father’s birthday? Well, one something like it. 
And we could paint Mr. K.’s coat of arms on the parchment— 
with the interior of Sniggery, and bits of the lawn, and—all sorts 
of rum things.” 

George looked at his younger brother with admiration. 

é“ Capital idea, old chap; but—well, do you think he'd care 
for it? I mean it seems such a very small-beery sort of thing to 
offer a great man like Mr. IK.” 

“Oh, [’m sure he’ll hike it. He's dead nuts on Sniggery you 
know. Told me the other day he enjoyed it awfully. Let's ask 
father, after dinner.”’ 

é“ There's not much time left,” George argued. “The holidays 
are all but gone, and lessons will soon be setting in with great 
severity, Then there's the fishing, and the last cricket match.” 

Father Horbury had more than onne said to his pupils as he 
came upon them after school discussing some new project, half 
play and half work,—“That’s right, lads. You are determined 


480 The Irish Monthly. 


not to give the devil a chance.” Uertainly, whatever else they might 
be, the boys of Ridingdale Hall were not lazy. 

A working committee was formed that very day. Hilary 
undertook the sawing and preparation of the wood, and promised 
to put the thing together as soon as George and Lance had finished 
the carving. Willie Murrington was told off with the address, 
and Harry pledged himself to the work of engrossing this same 
address as soon as they were all agreed as to the terms in which 
it should be indited—a matter ultimately referred to the Squire, 
for that the boys wera in hopeless disagreement as to the most 
fitting phraseology. 

Birthdays at the Hall came round with such embarrassing 
frequency—sometimes two or three in the same month—that one 
home-made present was scarcely finished when another had to be 
tuken in hand. The house was full of these little evidences of 
thoughtful affection—all begun and executed in profoundest 
secrecy—ranging from tiny pictures to cabinets of considerable 
size. Thus Hilary’s really fine receptacle for bird-eggs was the 
joint work of Harry, and George, and Lanoe, while a most useful 
set of drawers for manuscript, long needed by their father, had 
occupied all the bigger boys for several months. Indeed the 
carpenter's shop was never quite abandoned, no matter what the 
season of the year might be, though the amount of time spent in 
it day by day was little enough. 

Harry and Lance, full of the idea of the moment, were disposed 
to shirk their violin practice in order to gain more time for the 
execution of the “ Freedom ; ” but the Squire would not permit it. 

‘There is no particular hurry for this testimonial,” he said, 
“and you will best show your gratitude to Mr. Kittleshot by 
making the most of all these instruments he has been good enough 
to give us.” 

The Colonel, who had heard the story of Mr. Kittleshot’s 
present with very mixed feelings, and whose ears had for the last 
month been assaulted with a good deal of untuneful scraping and 
blowing, roundly declared that the lads were making no progress 
at all, and that it might be years before they would be able to 
play anything worth listening to. 

é“ Kittleshot isn’t practical,” he said. ‘‘ Begun all wrong. As 
to finding fiddlers iu Ridingdale, much less Timington, why—it’s 
nonsense.” 


Doings in the Dale. 481 


The millionaire himself did not think so. Ever active and ever 
inquisitive, he was constantly going about among the people, 
finding a little talent here, and a suspicion of genius there, and 
generally leaving no stone unturned in order to discover every 
person in the Dale who had the least taste or capacity for vocal 
or instrumental music. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THOUGHTLESS THOUGHTFULNESS, 


If life should a well-ordered poem be 
(In which he only hits the white 
Who joins true profit with the best delight) 
The more heroic way let others take, 
Mine the Pindario way I'll make, 
The matter shall be grave, the numbers loose and free. 


CowLey, 


The temporary breach between Mr. Kittleshot and his son had 
not widened, and though the interchange of visits and dinners 
between Timington and Hardlow was more formal than cordial, 
it was at any rate regular. Mr. Kittleshot, junior, v as reconciled 
to the fact of his father’s presence at Timington Hall; his sons, 
for reasons of their own, still resented it. There are times when 
boys seem to forget that their elders have eyes and ears, and 
certainly if Horace and Bertie Kittleshot remembered this 
important fact they must have been strongly under the influence 
of that “ Don’t-care feeling ” which so quickly developes into 
recklessness. They knew that their grandfather had not merely 
sight and hearing, but eyes of the keenest and ears of the sharpest; 
they ought to have known that his capacity for interesting him- 
self in the doings of others was one of the most prominent features 
of his character. 

The scene at the Hardlow dinner-table when old Mr. 
Kittleshot denounced the parental methods of his son, made a 
deeper impression upon the latter than his father had any idea of. 
For it is a curious fact that words we not only seem to object to, 
but do really most strongly resent, sometimes become the subse- 
quent guiding principles of our life. Mr. Kittleshot, junior, had 
long suspected that his sons were not what their mother supposed 





482 The Irish Monthly. 


them to be; but when, as his futher had suggested, he began to 
enter into the details of their daily life he was as much startled 
as shocked. Hitherto the parental reins had been held as loosely 
as possible; now they were drawn up with a jerk that made the 
two lads wince. Open rebellion they dare not show, but their 
secret revolt was deep aud lasting. 

Bertie had already turned fifteen, and in another month or 
two Ilorace would be fourteen; but in their own estimation they 
were already men of the world. ‘The sporting Krumptons 
were near neighbours and friends of Mr. Kittleshot, junior, 
and Jack, Bob, and Dick Krumpton—the three lads Hilary 
Ridingdale wanted to introduce to “ Lord Augustus ’’—were 
very intimate with Bertie and Llorace. 

In the first flush of his anger young Mr. Kittleshot was 
disposed to lay all the blame of his sons’ uaughtiness upon the 
Krumpton boys, but a little vigilance on his part soon convince: 
him of his error, 

There was indeed very little harm in the Krumptons. They 
had inherited a taste fur sport and a passion for horses and dogs, 
and they had been brought up in an atmosphere that was of the 
turf, turfy. Tleir father owned several race-horses and, being a 
man of considerable property, spent his large leisure in attending 
all the principal race-meetings in the country. He was anything 
but a reckless person in the matter of betting and had never 
pustuined a serious loss. liig boys were rather liked by the 
Ridingdales, though the two families did not often meet. Jack 
and Bob Krumpton were at school, and Vick, the youngest of the 
three, was to be sunt there after the Christmas holidays. They 
were honest, hearty lads whose greatest pleasure was a gallop 
across country. ‘heir knowledge of racing matters was on a par 
with their ignorance of most other things—either in the world of 
books or that of men; though their practical acquaintanceship 
with the turf was of the slightest. They were good enough to 
stoop to cricket, however, in the summer holidays, and as 
Hilary said, though their batting lacked style and their bowling 
was a thing to discourage, their fielding made them acceptable 
additions to the Ridingdale eleven. 

But the Krumptons had (or thought they had) one other taste 
in common with the Ridingdales, and it was this that amused 
Hilary and his brothers sv greatly and made their meetings with the 


- 








x 


Doings in the Dale. 483 


betting-boys so prolific of fun. Nature had given the Krumptons 
very fair voices, and Jack had actually gone the length of learning 
the banjo. During the past month Sniggery had more than once 
resounded to “ Drink, puppy, drink,” and a host of similar songs, 
the solos of which had been taken, with great seriousness, by Jack 
and Bob. 

é“ We can’t come up to you, chaps, of course,” the latter had 
said to Lance on one of these occasions, ‘but don’t you think 
we re improving a bit ?” 

é“ No doubt about it,” Lance replied, trying to keep a straight 
face; “that last song was a rattler. Are you taking lessons, 
Bob?” 

é“ Well, not exactly lessons. But Jack and I are both in the 
school choir now. Wear whites on Sunday, y’ know, and that 
sort of thing.” 

“Whites!” exclaimed the puzzled Lance. 

é“ Yes, whites. What you chaps call a surplice.”’ 

Lance looked at the boy in astonishment. There was at first 
sight something so comically incongruous in the idea of this lad— 
whose ordinary dress and appearance was that of a superior 
jockey—putting on ecclesiastical garments and acting the part of 
a chorister. 

“ Oh, it’s ripping, I tell you,” Bob continued. ‘‘ I had a solo 
the other Sunday—‘ As pants the hart,’ by a chap named Spohr. 
Ever hear it ?” 

é“ Yes,” said Lance, hesitatingly, and not quite knowing how 
to take his companion, who, however, was both serious and 
enthusiastic. 

“Well, I call it serumptious—don’t you? I was beastly funky 
at first; but when I heard the other beggars chipping in—you 
know how it goes—I warmed to, and bellowed till I was blue in 
the face. When it was over, I—I— ” 

Bob broke off suddenly and turned his head away. Lance 
waited in silence. 

é“ I wouldn't tell any other chap,” Bob went on, after a pause, 
“but you won't laugh at me, I know. When it was all over, I 
put my face in my surplice and—blubbed like a kid.” 

é T quite understand,” said Lance very quietly. “ [t’s nothing 
to be ashamed of. Sometimes I can’t sing at all for blubbing.” 

The lads were silent for atime. Each would have liked to 


” 





484 The Irish Monthly. 


say more; but Bobby’s tongue was held by incapacity, and 
Lance’s by that horror of cant he had learnt from his father. 

“é Talk to God and His Blessed Mother as much, and as often, 
as you like, both in church and out of it,” the Squire often said; 
“but apart from that, if you want to show that you are good 
Catholic lads, prove it by being unselfish, gentle, and considerate 
to one another, by being obedient and hard-working—not by 
using cant phrases and religious slang.” 

Yet in the younger children, the little ones who had not yet 
become self-conscious, Ridingdale loved to encourage pious prattle, 
and he would allow Sweetie to entertain him by the hour with 
talk about the angels and saints, and all things holy and good. 

Lance became very thoughtful after his conversation with 
Bobby Krumpton. The Squire's fourth son was an odd boy in 
some respects. A casual visitor to the Hall would have regarded 
him as the most frivolous member of the family, and certainly 
nine-tenths of the scrapes he fell into were the result of want of 
reflection. But once a thought took hold of him he did not easily 
letit go, and Lance with his thinking-cap on was quite hopeless for 
ordinary purposes of work or play. Le would wander out into 
the park all alone, or stroll down to the river and lie on the bank 
for hours together in order to think out some new idea that for the 
time completely possessed him. It was certainly one of ‘‘life’s 
little ironies’ that these very fits of reflection often led him into 
trouble, ‘or at such times he would become so entirely absorbed 
that the duty of the hour was forgotten. Thoughtless thought- 
fulness seems a contradiction in terms, but Lance was often guilty 
of it. Once when he had been locked up in the tool-house for an 
hour—he had been sent to the village with au important message 
and had returned without delivering it—the time being up, Hilary 
was sent to let his brother out. 

“ Oh, I do wish you'd leave a fellow alone !” was Lance’s only 
remerk when the door was unlocked. As he made no signs of 
moving, Hilary laughingly retired, leaving the door open, Three 
hours later Lance entered the house, only to find that he had 
missed afternoon lessons and—tea. Nor did he come to himself 
until his father had administered to him alight dose of “tincture 
of birch.” 

But, as he grew older, Lance’s fits of abstraction became, if not 
less intense, at any rate shorter in duration, partly because he 











SA: - 


Doings in the Dale. 445 


really tried to act more reasonably, and partly on account of a 
compact made with his brothers. 

é“ Promise me,” he had said to the Snigs, “ promise you'll kick 
me when you find me mooning, and that you'll take me by the 
scruff of the neck, if necessary, and drag me to the post of 
duty.” 

And the Snigs promised ; though the kicking, on account of 
the serious nature of their foot-gear, was of a considerate 
character. 

But Lance’s talk with Bobby Krumpton led to one of the 
most pronounced attacks of absence of mind he had ever suffered 
from. Luckily it was holiday time, and a day’s fishing was the 
very thing to foster meditation. So for fully eight hours Lance 
maintained a golden silence—removing himself from the 
neighbourhood of his brothers—once he had gained possession of 
his own share of the lunch. Hilary remarked this method in the 
youngster’s madness, and proposed to the others that they should 
overhaul Lance’s fish-basket on his return. They did so and 
found that it contained a copy of ‘‘ Treasure Island,’ and a new 
book by Mr. Barry Pain. 

“ Not a single fish !” exclaimed Hilary. “ What do you mean 
by it, sir P”’ 

é I vote that he be put on trial for unsociable conduct, and an 
independence of action not to be tolerated in a younger brother,” 
said Harry. There were occasions when Sniggery became a Court 
cf Justice, and each of the brothers had been arraigned there at 
one time or other for some minor offence against the good of the 
commonwealth. 

Lance had been silent for so many hours that speech did not 
come back to him so readily as usual. Moreover, he was feeling 
really guilty and atrifle mean. At any other time he would have 
protested saucily that it was a free country and that if a chap liked 
to spend a holiday in reading—and thinking—he had a right to 
doso. On this occasion, however, he was prepared to eat humble 
pie, and to throw himself on the mercy of his brothers. 

“ Don't put me on trial this time,” he pleaded meekly. (He 
rather dreaded a formal bringing up before Sniggery—it took 
such a time and involved so many uncomfortable and humiliating 
details). ‘I own I am in the wrong, and DT take a licking from 
Hilly—now, if he likes.” 








486 The Irish Monthly. 


“The prisoner pleads guilty, and would like to be summarii¢ 
dealt with. Very well,” said Hilary making a great show of 
straightening out a long rod that he had cut from the osier bed 
hard by, ‘‘ Let him advance and hold out his hand.” 

The two boys met, and the big brother, for reasons of his own. 
examined the other’s open palms. Lance was glad he had just 
washed them in the river. 

é“ Why, what’s this!” exclaimed Hilary. There was a great 
cut running along the very part of the right hand that the rod 
might have fallen upon. “ That's no good,” said the compassionale 
elder boy wh» only wanted a decent pretext for letting off the 
culprit ; ‘‘let’s see the other.” 

‘'wo fingers of the left hand were bandaged with linen. 

é“ Worse than the right!” Hilary declared, affecting to look 
puzzled. “ What do you mean by cutting and slashing yourself 
all over in that manner ?” 

é“ It's the carving tools, Hilary; they will slip so.” 

é Well, I know you didn’t do it to defeat the ends of justice, 
so I'll just change your punishment,” said the big lad graciously, 
and laying a brotherly arm on Lanoe’s shoulder. Hilary was 
prou 1 of the youngster’s pluck, but would not tell him so. “ As 
we go home, you shall just tell us what you have been mooning 
over lately—that is, when you haven't been reading Stevenson and 
Pain.” 

“It’s awfully mixed up,” began Lance eagerly, realising that 
he was forgiven and so doubly anxious to make reparation. “ It’s 
jolly good of you, Lilly, to let me off like this ”—he went on 
taking his big brother’s arm and speaking for the moment ina 
lower tone. ‘ Well, I say ”—his voice became high and olear 
now—‘ you remember what Barry Pain said about boys a little 
while ago P” 

‘You mean as to their being made up of equal parts of poet, 
pirate, and pig ?” asked Hilary. “ We're not likely to forget 
that in a hurry.” 

“ Didn't the debate on it in Sniggery last three whole 
nights?’ murmured George. 

é“ I remember we gave two nights to the pig,” Harry said, 
laughing at the recollection. 

“And we accepted Mr. Pain’s dictum,” Hilary resumed, 
é barring the ‘ equal parts ’—didn’t we P”’ 


~~ 





Doings in the Dule. 487 


“Of course,” rejoined T.ance anxious to proceed. “We 
decided that the parts were always unequal—except in—I forget 
the proper word, Hilly.” | 

“ Except in abnormal cases. We granted that Sweetie, for 
instance, was all poet: but then his case was a very exceptional 
one.” 

“And I know I admitted that I was all pirate and pig,” 
exclaimed Lance. 

“ Only,” spoke Willie Murrington, “ we didn’t admit it. 
You’ve got as much of the poet in you as any of us.” 

“ More than some of us,’ George declared very solemnly. 
é He could never sing as he does if——”’ 

‘‘ Perhaps, then, in me the parts are really equal,” cried Lance. 
é I should like to think that, for I hate anything—abnormal, is 
it?” 

é“ Ah, but,” said Willie, shaking his head, “if we didn’t get 
the abnormal now and then, we should never have a genius.”” 

“ Bravo, Willie! ” exclaimed several. 

“ Well,” continued Lance,” it was Bobby Krumpton that set 
me thinking. Something he said quite bowled me over. I can’t 
tell you what it was ’cause I promised not to. But here wasa 
fellow I had thought of as unmitigated p——” | 

“ Not pig,” interrupted Harry. “ The Krumptons are nct 
nearly go piggish as the——” 

“ No names, please!” Hilary called out. “ It’s true we had 
one or two bad cases of piggishness during the matches, and that 
the pigs in question were not poor boys—who perhaps have some 
' gort of excuse for over-eating themselves ; but we won't mention 
names.” 

“No, I wasn’t going to call the Krumptons pigs,” said Lance, 
“but I’m afraid I'd always thought of them as pirates. The 
reckless way they dash about the country, and that sort of thing, 
you know.” 

“ Yes, I know what you mean, Lance,” responded Hilary. 

é Well, the fact is, they’ve got no end of poetryin em, I’m 
sorry I can’t tell you what Bobby said to me the other day, but 
since then I’ve had a chat with Jack and—well, he astonished me. 
I eouldn’t make it out at first, both of ’em used such rummy ex- 
pressions I thought they were making fun of their religion, just 
like Protestants do in their books, you know. You remember 





488 The Irish Monthly. 


that book we all liked so much—‘ The Silver Period,’ wasn’t it? 
Well, the man’s awfully inconsistent. He tells you what a good 
fellow the curate is—vapital bowler, and always ready for any fun 
that’s going; and yet, later on, he tries to make him out a silly 
giggling ass. And whenever church is mentioned it’s with a sneer 
at the services and a sneer at the parson. Perhaps he doesn’t 
mean it, you know. Perhaps Protestants do really love their 
religion ; but it seems to me that, in books at any rate, they laugh 
at it a good deal.” 

“é Father says that what you speak of is a blot on one of the 
best and brightest books of the century,” said Hilary ; “ but to 
return to our——” 

“ Pigs !” Harry interrupted. “ Beg pardon; I should say 
pirates.” 

é I say poets,” Lance exclaimed. “ But what I am leading up 
to is this:—Don’t you think it’s all rot, this trying to classify 
boys just as if they were beetles or butterflies P ”’ 

é [ for one certainly think so,” said George, waking up from 
a brown study. The boys were nearing the Hall now, and one cr 
two of them felt a little weary with the long day’s sport.—‘‘ One 
makes such duffing mistakes, you see.” 

“ Sure to be caught out somewhere,’ Harry remarked. ‘! 
take it that we are each of us a separate study—always supposing 
anybody cared to make a study of us.” 

“And yet,” pleaded Lance, “I can’t help thinking Barry 
Pain’s analysis a very good one.” 

‘Comes as near to the truth as such a thing can,” Hilary said 
with decision. ‘ But then—he is dealing only with the boy in 
his natural state.” 

Davip BEARNE, 8.4. 


(To be continued). 





( 489 ) 


OLAVIS ACROSTICA. 
A Key To “ Dusiin Acrostics.” 


No. 35. 


For certa’n reasons we pass over No. 34 for the present. It 
is very much .onger than the following, which Mr. Reeves assigns 
to Miss Alice O’Brien, Old Church, Limerick. 


The secrets to my second told 
My first too often doth unfold. 


1. Never true. 
2. Not always new. | 
3. Always two. 


Do you give it up? Lip and ear, with the “lights,” le, idea, and 
pair. With this we may join No. 37 (for No. 36 is very long). 


No. 37. 


When my first is arrived at, a shout loud and clear 

Will peal up from the friends of Will Gladstone the caustic, 
And none of the kingdom my second shall fear, 

Though its name you may give to this double acrostic ; 
While my whole jabbers on what he’s taught to express, 
Like a member reciting his maiden address. 


1. I lived through many and many a year. 
2. I swept the skies with studious eyes, 
3. Nor dreamt of what’s to weary minds so dear. 


Ww. 


This is signed “ W’’——namely, Mr. William Woodlock, 
Q.C., Divisional Magistrate of Dublin—a man of great talents, 
culture, modesty, benevolence, and piety. Were the Funds 
below parat that time? Parrot is the word he outsin two. The 
lights are Old Parr, the French astronomer Arago, and rest. No 
one would dream of applying the epithet caustic to the great and 
good man who has lately passed away, except a poet in search of 
a rhyme for the word “ acrostic.”’ 


Vou. xxvi. No, 303. 86 











( 490 ) 


MORE BORROWED THOUGHTS ABOUT STYLE. 


NE of the magazines has announced beforehand as an item 

in its July programme a paper on Style by some one whose 

practice makes me anxious to see histheory. Next week I shall 

look after this matter and probably borrow some of these newest 

thoughts about style; but July magazines are not accessible on 
the Feast of St. Aloysius, at which date this mosaic is begun. 

The title of my paper makes open profession that these 
thoughts are taken from others; and the “more ” refers back to 
8 previous occasion when I did the same thing—in October, 1895. 
At page 520 of our 23rd volume may be found “ Variorum 
Thoughts on Style,” the rarii being Mr. John Morley, Alexander 
Pope, Victor Wugo, Matthew Arnold, Denis Florence MacCarthy, 
Louis Veuillot, and Mr. William Watson. My personal taste 
prefers a miscellany of this kind to an original and consecutive 
disquisition, such as Father John Gerard’s very clever essay on 
style which may be read at page 510 of our 20th volume (1892). 
I purposely furnish all these precise references for the sake of 
some one who in the coming years may have the opportunity. 
perhaps in some public library, to follow the subject from volume 
to volume, of what will then be an old, faded, musty magazine 
called Zhe Irish Monthly. There will be people found to take the 
keenest interest in even less serious subjects in the year 1998. For 
so the world goes on. 

Instead of beginning with the earliest, I will first take the 
latest of the dicta about style which seem worth reproducing here. 
The Nineteenth Century for June, 1898, gives a lecture on “ Style 
in English Prose ” which Mr. Frederick Harrison addressed to a 
society of young men at Oxford. Here are a few sentences out 
of many pages :— 

‘Tt is a good rule for a young writer to avoid more than twenty 
or thirty words without a full stop, and not to put more than two 
commas in each sentence, so that its clauses should not exceed 
three. This, of course, only in practice. 

Never quote anything that is not apt and new. Those stale 
citations of well worn lines give us a cold shudder, as does a pun 
ata dinner party. A familiar phrase from poetry or Soripture 





More Borrowed Thoughts about Style. 491 


may pass when embedded in your sentence. But to show it round 
as a nugget which you have just picked up is the innocent fresh- 
man’s snare. Never imitate any writer, however good. All 
imitation in literature is a mischief, as it is in art, 

Though you must never imitate any writer, you may study the 
best writers with care. And for study choose those who have 
founded no school, who have no special and imitable style. Read 
Smith, Hume, and Goldsmith in English ; and of the moderns, I 
think, Thackeray and Froude. Ruskin is often too rhapsodical 
for a student ; Meredith too whimsical. 

Read Smith, Defoe, Goldsmith if you care to know pure 
English.” : 

Mr. Harrison had begun by urging that no one need pretend 
to aim at acquiring what may properly be called style unless he 
has a “subtle ear for the melody of words, a fastidious instinct 
for the connotations of a phrase.” 

In the passage that we have quoted there are some names 
conspicuous by their absence and some conspicuous by their 
presence. The “Smith” who goes before Hume must be, not 
Sydney Smith, but Adam Smith; and who goes now to "The 
Wealth of Nations” to learn style? But the most remarkable 
thing in Mr. Harrison’s lecture at Oxford is the omission of the 
clarum et venerabile nomen of John Henry Newman. By way of 
atonement I will cite a rather long passage from another master 
of style, the late Dean Church :— 

é“ There are two great styles—the self-conscious, like that of 
Gibbon .or Macaulay, where great sucoess in expression is 
accompanied ‘by an unceasing and manifest vigilance that ex- 
pression shall succeed, and where you see at each step that there 
is or has been much oare and work in the mind, if not on the 
paper ; and the unconscious, like that of Pascal or Swift or Hume, 
where nothing suggests at the moment that the writer is thinking 
of anything but his subject, and where the power of being able to 
say just what he wants to say seems to come at the writer’s com- 
mand without effort and without his troubling himself more about 
it than about the way in which he holds his pen. But both are 
equally the fruit of hard labour and honest persevoring self- 
correction ; and it is soon found out whether the apparent 
negligence comes of loose and slovenly habits of mind, or whether 
it marks the confidence of one who has mastered his instrument, 


492 The Irish Monthly. 


and can forget himself and let himself go on using it. The free, 
unconstrained movement of Dr. Newman’s style tells any one who 
knows what writing is of a very keen and exact knowledge of the 
subtle and refined secretsof language. With all that uncared-for 
play and simplicity there was a fulness, a richness, a curious 
delicate music, quite instinctive and unsought for; above all, a 
precision and sureness of expression which people soon began to 
find were not within the power of most of those who tried to use 
language. Such English, graceful with the grace of nerve, 
floxibility, and power, must always have attracted attention ; but 
it had also an ethical element which was almost inseparable from 
its literary characteristics. Two things powerfully determined 
the style of these sermons. One was the intense hold which the 
vast realities of religion had gained on the writer’s mind, and the 
perfect truth with which his personality sank and faded away 
before their overwhelming presence ; the other was the strong 
instinctive shrinking, which was one of the most remarkable and 
certain marks of the biginners of the Oxford Movement, from any- 
thing like personal display, any cconscious aiming at the 
ornamental and brilliant, any show of gifts or courting of popular 
applause. Morbid or excessive or not, there can be no doubt of the 
stern, self-containing severity which made them turn away, not 
only with fear, but with distaste and repugnance, from all that 
implied distinction or seemed to lead to honour; and the control 
of this austere spirit is visible, in language as well as matter, in 
every page of Dr. Newman’s sermons.” 

We pass on from Mr. Frederick Harrison after giving his 
estimate of Oliver Goldsmith. “ Dear old Goldie! There is ease, 
pellucid simplicity, wit, pathos. I doubt if English prose has 
ever gone further, or will go further or higher.” 

At page 424 of a very recent volume of the Pali Mall Magazine, 
(1896 or 1897), Mr. Quiller-Couch—who by the way telle us in 
July, 1898 (for, strange to say, 1 have already seen the forth- 
coming number) that he, like the poet Vowper, finds it hard to 
banish the cow sound from his name—this clever story-teller at 
that unspecified past date devoted one of his causeries “ From a 
Cornish Window ” to a very pleasant discussion of style in recent 
English prose. In the previous March number of the Magazine 
he had, half in joke, proposed the following competition :— 
‘The magnificent prize of one guinea will be awarded to the 





More Borrowed Thoughts about Style. 493 


teader who divines the name of the man (or woman) who ia (or 
has been during the past ten years) master (or mistress) of the 
best style in English prose,” He received 164 guesses, of which 
31 named Walter Puter, 13 Hardy, 12 R. L. Stevenson, 11 
Ruskin, 9 Andrew Lang; and then Froude, Barrie, Kipling, 
Matthew Arnold, Marie Corelli, Besant, and Canon Doyle, 
received votes dwindling down from 7 to 3. Nine, including 
Mrs. Meynell, Mr. Birrell and Anthony Hope, got two votes each ; 
while one vote apiece went to 28 writers, some of them greater 
than most of the preceding. 

Mr. Quiller-Couch makes many entertaining and instructive 
comments on this literary plébiscite before announcing that the 
name that he had put into a sealed envelope before the competition 
began was “ Andrew Lang:” so his guinea was divided among 
nine successful guessers, only one of whom is Irish—Mr. W. 
Jeffrey White, 41 Blessington Street, Dublin. Unlike Mr. 
Harrison, Mr. Quiller-Couch names Newman, but only to put him 
above all competition; and he applies with certain reservations 
to Andrew Lang what Mr. W. E. Henley wrote of Thackeray as 
“a type of high-bred English, a climax of literary art.” But 
Mr. Henley also places altogether apart the style of the great 
Oratorian as a thing “ enskied and sainted.” ‘‘ Setting aside 
Cardinal Newman’s, the style he wrote is certainly less open to 
criticism than that of any modern Englishman. He was neither 
super-eloquent like Mr. Ruskin, nur a Germanised Jeremy like 
Carlyle; he was not marmoreally emphatic as Landor was, nor 
was he slovenly and inexpressive as was the great Sir Walter ; 
he neither dallied in antithesis like Macaulay, nor rioted in verbal 
vulgarisms like Dickens; he abstained from technology and what 
may be called Lord Burleighism as carefully as George Hliot 
indulged in them, and he avoided conceits as sedulously as Mr. 
George Meredith goes out of his way to hunt for them.” 

This paper was begun on St. Aloysius’s Day; it is now the 
vigil of 8S. Peter and Paul, and 1 have got the July number of 
the magazine that is called after the first of those glorious saints. 
The best piece of literature that has yet fallen to it is the essay on 
atyle, to which I looked forward at the beginning of my present 
paper. The writer is Father Ignatius Dudley Ryder, Cardinal 
Newman’s successor as Provost of the Oratory at Edgbaston. His 
paper is largely a discussion of a recent work on style by Professor 


494 The Irish Monthly. 


Walter Raleigh, whom he scems to rate higher than Mr. Harrison 
does; for evidently Mr. Raleigh is the person of whom Mr. 
Harrison snid in the lecture that we have referred to: * An 
ingenious professor of literature has lately ventured to commit 
himself to an entire treatise on style, wherein he has propounded 
everything that can be usefully said about this art, in a style 
which illustrates everything that you should avoid.” 

It would be pleasant to dwell on the clever criticisms to which 
Father Ryder subjects Professor Raleigh’s statements and 
principles; but it will be better to let the reader study those 
things in full as they are within reach. Most of the other things 
that we have cited are practically inaccessible. 

Our last remark may be an illustration of Buffon’s famous 
saying, “Le style o’est l'homme.” Many a man commits 
himself seriously by committing his thoughts to paper. Perhaps 


the present ol/a podrida is a case in point. 
M. R. 


BEYOND THE BOURNE. 


08: mother sing to me a lullaby, 
While quiet here and looking up I lie ; 
I see the floor of Heaven spread out on high, 
And stars, the silver nails that fasten up the sky. 


“ And while you're singing I will float away 
And rise beyond the floor into the day, 


And leave you here to sing for me and pray— 
But do not fear, I will come back, 1 will not stay away.” 


She sang the lullaby all through the night, 

Nor ceased her singing with the morning light. 

Weary with watching grow her tear-dimmed sight, 

But the child came not back although the day grew bright. 


And then the mother prayed but sung no more, 

She knew that death had beaten at her door; 

For though the prayer be strong and suit be sore, 

None pass again the silver nails that hold up Heaven’s floor. 


W. Avexanper Craic, M.R.LA. 








( 495 ) 


A SUNDAY OUTING. 


IR is five o'clock of a Sunday morning, and the mists lie white 

over the bog-lands as yet, though the larks are trilling 
roundeaux and triolets and glees in the sky overhead, and the 
corn-crakes crying hoarsely in the dewy freshness of the white and 
crimson clover. From the chimney of a homestead nestling at the 
foot of a slight hill a thin line of blue smoke is curling upwards ; 
and the ducks and hens are rejoicing over their early breakfast on 
the sandy patch of ground that stretches before the cottage-door. 
The two or three cows that have just reached the byre are surely 
wondering why they have been brought from the emerald meadow 
where they have passed the night at such an hour; nevertheless 
they stand patiently while Pat Connolly and his wife, in unwonted 
silence, get through their work of milking. When it is accom- 
plished, Pat hurries his cattle back to their pasturage, pausing for 
a moment to glance approvingly at a newly washed cart that is 
‘‘heeled up’ under the shade of a beech tree, while Mrs. 
Connolly bears the frothy milk-pails into the barn that is made to 
serve the purpose of a dairy in the summer season. 

Ínside the Connolly domicile there is much commotion. The 
eldest girl is trying with needle and thread and thimbleless finger to 
repair a rent in a frock belonging to the youngest member of the 
family, while one of her brothers reminds her that Sunday stitch- 
ing has to be unpicked on Monday. Two or three children in 
various stages of undress are uproarious over the prospect of the 
holiday they are to have to-day, and full of conjectures and 
questions as to what sort of place that their mother’s former home 
is. A row of shoes polished so that one might see one’s own 
reflection in them is ranged underneath the table that stands 
beside the kitchen dresser ; and hats and caps, new or renovated, 
are hung upon the whitewashed wall. A big kettle is bubbling 
and seething over the peat fire, and the teapot has been rinsed 
and awaits Mrs. Connolly’s return. The young woman for whom 
the breach of the Sabbath is being committed is screaming lustily 
from the room behind the fire, and her immediate senior is 
despatched to quiet her, but in doing so increases the din. Mre. 
Connolly’s entrance and a few threats and shakes restore a sort of 
order. 


496 The Irish Monthly. 


The excitement is too acute to allow breakfast being aught 
but a scramble; not even the presence of the baker’s loaf on the 
table or Mrs. Connolly’s reminders that the journey to Lismore is 
along one can induce the children to make a hearty meal. The 
cups and saucers, the bowls and tins, are hastily washed up, the 
pigs are fed, and the calves supplied with their allowance of butter- 
milk, and then the business of dressing begins. There is many a 
call for Mrs. Connolly. She has to button the neck-band of her 
husband’s shirt—a task only a trifle less difficult than inducing 
the baby to allow her ten refractory toes to rest inside her new 
leather boots. She has to arrange Jamesie’s flaxen locks in a stiff 
and unbecoming curl, and persuade Kate to don the eldest girls 
jacket. At length, however, Pat assisted by the eldest boy has 
the brown mare between the shafts of the blue and red painted 
vehicle. A board, covered by a bag stuffed with hay, is stretched 
across the cart, and makes a not very uncomfortable seat for Pat 
and his wife, and two youngest children. The others, with much 
laughter and pushing, are crammed in behind; Pat shakes the 
reins, gives a sharp “‘cliok, click” with his tongue, and off they 
go. 

Suddenly Mrs. Connolly gives a quick exclamation. ““ Och, 
sure, we've forgotten the basket with the dozen of turkey eggs! ” 

Pat pulls up, and half a dozen voices offer (on behalf of their 
respective pairs of legs) to go back to the house for the missing 
articles. “ Have you the bottle, Pat P” Mrs. Connolly asks in a half 
whisper. Her spouse claps his hand over the pookets of hia cost. 
“Sorra a bit! It is well we didn’t leave it behind altogether!” 
Pat says thankfully. Jamesie receives instructions as to the 
whereabouts of the half pint of Coleraine whiskey, and the setting 
of turkey eggs, and darts back to the house Pat Connolly and 
his wife know better than to visit their relatives empty-handed. 

Jamesie is back in a few seconds. The basket is deposited at 
Mrs. Connolly’s feet, and the bottle finds a resting place in Pat’s 
pocket. The brown mare moves onward again. She has probably 
been meditating over the unusual proceedings going on. Along 
the sandy, deep-banked boreen she travels slowly. The rose- 
covered hedges rise high on each side. There is the scent of 
blossoming honeysuokle in the air, and the early morning sun- 
beams turn the tender leaves on the young beeches to greenish 
gold. Amid the grass on the banks are beds of blue speedwells 








A Sunday Outing. 497 


and scented violets, and what the children call “dens” of wild 
strawberries. The mare quickens her pace as she passes through 
an opening that leads from the bureen to the Queen’s highway. 
The road is broad and level and grass-grown at the sides. The 
cattle in the fields lift their heads as the cart jogs past. By-and- 
bye a river comes in view, and the children stretch their necks to 
get a glimpse of the rippling waters with their crowns of amber 
foam. Yellow iris and golden broom adorn the banks, and a soft 
wind sings amid the pendulous pink-tinted clusters of a line of 
young sycamores. Far away a solitary pedestrian comes in sight, 
and Pat glances to the sun. 

“ We'll need to hurry,” he says, striking his steed with the 
wattle he carries fora whip. ‘ Mass is at ten in Lismore.” 

The observation brings forth a string of questions from the 
crowd behind. 

“ What sort of a chapel is Lismore P ”’ 

“ What's the name of its priest ?”’ 

‘‘ Is there singing at Mass?” 

“ Is there a gallery P”’ 

“ Does the priest preach every Sunday P”’ 

The questions are duly answered, and others follow. The a sun 
rises higher and higher in the cloudless blue sky, and the high- 
way becomes less lonely. Mrs. Connolly tries to shelter herself 
and the baby under a big cotton umbrella that is continually 
knocking Pat’s hat to one side, and threatening his eyes. No one 
is sorry when the mare stops before a comfortable farmhouse, and 
when Mrs. Connolly’s brother and her sister-in-law appear to 
welcome them. 

The younger children are lifted from the cart, and proceed 
shyly to make acquaintanceship with a number of cousins who are 
scattered over the street, while Mrs. Connolly is conducted by her 
sister-in-law into the house. The former notes that one or two 
articles have been added to the furniture of the room before the 
fire since her last visit. There is a mirror over the mantel-piece, 
and a fine screen of crumpled paper hanging across the fire-place. 
The baby has fallen asleep, and is placed in a bed in an inner 
room. It is not worth while for Mrs. Connolly to take off her 
bonnet and shawl, but she drinks a oup of tea before she starts 
with her husband and brother for Lismore Chapel. The latter’s 
helpmate must needs remain indoors to cook the dinner and mind 


498 The Irish Monthly. 


the younger children. The elder ones have already set out for 
Mass. 

Many a handshake does Mrs. Connolly receive as she emerges 
from the chapel when Mass is over, and much news does she hear 
of old friends But first of all she pays a visit to the spot where 
her father and mother are buried. A sunken moss-covered stone 
marks the place, and she kneels long beside it. What sorrows, 
and joys, and cares she has known since she first knelt there ! 

Her sister-in-law’s appearance testifies to the fact that dinner 
is ready when she reaches her old home. When the meal is over, 
the children are despatched to hunt for strawberries or to admire 
the calves; and a glass of punch for the seniors is prepared from 
Pat’s Coleraine whiskey. Then the two men proceed to make the 
round of the farm, and the two women gossip of local matters till 
the matron of the house thinks of exhibiting her new bonnet and 
oape. Perhaps Mrs. Connolly has some envious feeling as she 
examines and admires these. There are more signs of wealth in 
the home of her girlhood than were in former times, for her 
brother has wedded a good match, and an American legacy lately 
received by his wife has made him a very warm man indeed. 
After a little Mre. Connolly is taken to see the hens, and the pigs, 
and the calves. She is also shown the new milk can, and the 
separated milk. Lismore boasts a creamery, and its attendant 
quarrels and feuds. The women follow their husbands to the 
field where the flax is ‘“ blue-boughed,” and much is said of the 
lessening value of the crop; and when the circuit of the farm is 
ended, it is time to think of preparing tea. 

The tea and soda scones are partaken of quietly, for the 
children are still outside—some playing “Duck and Drake,” 
others hunting for gooseberries among the few straggled bushes 
in the garden, and two or three others again engaged in spinning 
tops When they aresummoned inside, they present a tattered 
appearance, but able they certainly are for a fair quantity of buns 
and tea. Pat has been in the stable giving the brown mare a feed 
of oats prior to starting on their homeward journey. The various 
presents—a cutting of a fuchsia, a slip of a rose tree,a bantam 
hen, and a wonderfully ugly Dresden Shepherdess—bestowed on 
the children by their cousins, are carefully stowed away, the last 
good-byes are said, and Pat Connolly leads the mare to the public 
road. Conversation is brisk among the youngsters for a time, but 





Squtrrels. 499 


it gradually becomes more spasmodic. The lark soars and sings, 
and sings and soars high overhead, and the thrush chants a vesper 
hymu among the bushes. The west is a crimson sea that turns 
to a citron hue as the brown mare nears home. In it there are 
islets of pearly clouds with capes and headlands of rose and jasper ; 
and when the old boreen is reached, the peace of evening is over 


all the world. 
MAGpALEN Rock. 


SQUIRRELS. 


TRS morning I was walking in the woods, and I watched 

the ever new and varied antics of the active squirrel-folk. 
Hearing a familiar sound above me—the scratch of a squirrel 
paw upon the bark—I looked up, and a pair of sparkling black 
eyes revealed a little ruddy face against an almost equally ruddy 
pine branch. Is there anything in the world so impudently shy 
as the countenance of a watchful squirrel ? 

I stood perfectly still, and, quickly gaining confidence, the 
squirrel advanced cautiously down the tree trunk, his dancing 
eyes fixed on mine. When he had come so close that I could 
almost have touched him, had I been foolish enough to stretch up 
my hand, he paused, then suddenly faced about and scampered 
noisily to the topmost bough of the tree where he sat on his hind 
legs and cracked an imaginary nut, waving his bushy tail the 
while, Presently this last-mentioned appendage was dropped 
slowly over one side of the branch, whilst its owner leaning down, 
gazed at it from the other side with a most astonished face—just 
fancy a tail being there! Then it was whisked over his back, 
flattened and spread out as much as possible, while the squirrel 
cowered and shivered as though expecting a violent storm of rain ; 
again rapidly altering his position (and who oan do so more 
quickly than a squirrel?) he stood bold upright, laughing loud, 
infectious squirrel-laughter—chuck-twulla, chuck-wulla, wulla, eulla. 
Oh, it was an excellent joke! I laughed, too; how could I help 
it? Whereupon the little fellow glared at me with an “how 
dare you P” expression —then he became more serious, quite grave 
in fact. He turned his back to me, that expressive tail hanging 
down with an anxious droop while, lowering his head, he gave 
utterance to the long, low call, so plaintive, so far-carrying, but so 


500 The Irish Monthly 


seldom heard. At once the answer came from a distant oak ; his 
mate was all right then. Now my little friend was immensely 
amused at his recent anxiety. He laughed, oh dear! how he 
laughed—until he took it into his head to be frightened, when he 
tore off, leaping from bough to bough, knocking down rotten sticks 
with as much noise as possible, until he reached the summit of an 
adjacent beech tree, where he paused to crack a few nuts—real 
ones this time—and, having eaten the kernels, he aimed the shells 
at my head, and disappeared down the hollow-tree trunk with a 
smothered chuck-wulla, and a final flourish of that uncontrollable 
tail. 

You need only stand still in a pine wood to see these pretty 
red wood nymphs at play, and [ dare say you have watched their 
antics. But have you ever seen a squirrel perfectly still P I did 
this morning, but I do not think it is a common sight. 

Lie was sitting on the fork of a birch tree, his ruddy ears in 
bold relief against the silver bark, his furry face uplifted, but so 
motionless that you might almost have thought he was made of 
wood, were it not for the lustre of his black eyes and the soft curves 
of his little form. The very tip of that ever-restless squirrel-tail did 
not even twitch, not a whisker quivered, not an eyelash moved. 
And, oh! believe me, though I could not see her, that squirrel’s 
loved one was above him; else why that languishing, adoring 
expression in his glistening eyes, in the whole of his upturned 
countenance? ‘I'wo delicate fore-paws clasped tight to a white 
fluffy bosom some treasure, I know not what, about the size of his 
own head. This treacure was the cause of of his present behaviour. 
And why? Wild nature distrusts mankind, and did he not 
know that, if he moved, he might be detected, and, if detected, 
might he not be obliged to fly P And then what would become 
of that treasure, precious though cumbrous? Ah, who says the 
squirrels are not a cunning people ? 

I would not spoil the little stratagem, and went away; but 
although 1 looked back many times the squirrel never moved, 
and the last time I turned before losing sight of him he was still 
rigid asa statue. Heroic squirrel! 

I do not say this was the first time I ever saw a squirrel quiet. 
I only use this incident to illustrate the fact that a wide-awake 
squirrel can keep still in case of an emargency—but I think he 
finds it hard work. 

MavgE BLUNDELL. 








( 501 ) 


FATHER FINN’S STORIES. 


An AvsTRALIAN APPRECIATION, 


WE have very often had occasion to praise the stories, written 

chiefly for boys, by the Rev. Francis Finn, 8.J. As he 
was an American writing for American youth, we had some 
misgiving as to whether his tales would enjoy in this country a 
large share of the popularity which in the United States has 
pushed each of them through several editions. As a fact we have 
heard lately that they are relished by Irish boys also; and this 
is confirmed by a paper on the subject in “Our Alma Mater,” 
a college journal edited by the students of Riverview, near 
Sydney. The logical connection between these two last state- 
ments may not be quite apparent ; but at any rate Australians are 
not Americans, and most of the boy-editors of Riverview bear 
unmistakably Irish names, one of them being Charles Gavan 
Duffy, grandson of the Monaghan man who has given that name 
u place in history and literature. The Australian writer gives 
many personal details about the American Jesuit ; and, as “ Our 
Alma Mater ” cannot be accessible to our readers, we venture with 
this full acknowledgment to make use of two or three of its 


pages. 


w * w 

Father Finn’s great merit is that, being a Catholic, he writes, 
in a thoroughly Catholic spirit, racy and interesting stories— 
stories that boys like to read. For it is by his boy-audience, of 
course, he is to be judged. Tous in Australia, his books offer 
the further interest of giving us some idea of what American boys 
are like. We know America by report a good deal; but it is 
good to go and live a while on the play-grounds, and amidst the 
pleasant din of the young gentlemen born under the Stars and 
Stripes. Father Finn is credited by reviewers and critics with 
‘discovering ” the American boy, which means, I suppose, that 
ha discovered the secret of setting down his own fair and true idea 
of him truly and fairly on paper. This is the gift of authorship ; 
to be able to mint into alphabet-moulds the treasures which the 
hard-working soul has dug from common daily life. Noble they 
whose mintage passes current with men! 


502 The Irish Monthly. 


Boy-life is a hidden world that few are competent to write 
about at all, fewer still to write about in such wise as to interest 
boys; for it is not only sufficient to know boys—everyone knows 
boys—a good many to their cost rather than otherwise. It is 
necessary to see the romance of buy life, or, if you like, its poetical 
side. A country may be very unintoresting if you travel always 
along the valleys and in the shadows of the mountains; but don’t 


forget there are mountain tops up in the streaming sunlight. If . 


you take the trouble to go up you may change your views com- 
pletely about the country. Now, Iam always delighted when some 
one comes and takes me up there and shows me the golden land- 
scape, and so is every school-boy. ‘The love of the ideal is latent 
in young hearts as well as in old; and a tale of school life, no less 
than a tale of chivalry, may have the magic touch of imagination 
that makes us stop and listen. 

It is not my purpose to go through Father Finn’s tales, and 
recommend or criticise them. I think all my readers know his 
stories too well to need either. Instead of that I shall give some 
details about Father Finn himself, which lovers of his stories will 
be glad to have. 

Father Finn is, as anyone who reads his books must immedi- 
ately guess,a true American. He was born thirty-nine years 
ago, in St. Louis, Missouri, and during his very young years— 
those years in other boys’ lives he has described so well—was very 
fond of reading stories, being specially fond of Dickens; so fond 
of reading that games and sports occupied little of his time up to 
the age of fourteen. An anecdote is told of him, that one day 
during his twelfth year, whilst anxious friends were trying to 
induce him to give up his books and go out and take recreation, 
the Rev. John Van Krevel happened to call at his home, and was 
requested to use his persuasive powers to induce little Francis to 
go out. Father Van Krevel walked over to the young book-lover, 
and, patting him on the head, said: ‘*‘ Let him alone; he’s all 
right. He'll be a great story-writer some day.” 

However, when, at the age of fourteen, he went to live in 
St. Louis University, his companions were not so tolerant of his 
book-reading propensities, and he became one of the leaders of 
athletics in his college. He entered the Noviciate of the Society 
of Jesus on March 24th, 1879, and took his vows on March 25th, 
1881, 





Father Finn’s Stories. 503 


He taught at St. Mary’s College, Kansas, until 1883, when © 
he went to Woodstock College, Maryland, where he spent one 
year in the study of philosophy. The scholastic year of 1884-85 
was passed at St. Mary’s, Kansas, and 1885-86 in St. Xavier 
College, Cincinnatti. He then returned to Woodstock, and gave 
two years to the completion of his philosophy course. After two 
years of teaching at Marquette College, Milwaukee, he went back 
again to Woodstock and devoted the next four years to the study 
of theology, of which the last year was made at St. Louis. In 
1893, while at Woodstock, he was raised to the priesthood. 
Teaching at St. Mary’s and Marquette filled out the time until 
September, 96, when he began his tertianship at Florissant. 
From Florissant Father Finn went to Cincinnatti, where he has 
since been engaged in teaching at St. Xavier’s, and lecturing 
upon literature to the post-graduate class. 

Father Finn began writing in 1884 with a short story called 
é Charlie’s Victory.”” ‘‘ Ada Merton” appeared the same year. 
In 1885 he wrote “ Tom Playfair,” but did not publish it until 
1891, when he brought out also in book form “ Percy Wynn,” 
which had appeared serially in 1889. The year 1892 saw 
é Harry Dee,” which was followed the next year by ‘“ Claude 
Lightfoot.” Next came “ Mostly Boys,” and “ Ethelred Preston,” 
and lastly “ That Football Game,” which reached its fourth 
thousandth in three months. 

That Father Finn’s popularity is not on the wane may be 
judged from the fact that “Tom Playfair ”’ is now in its thirteenth 
thousand, ‘Percy Wynn”’ in its twelfth, ‘Claude Lightfoot ”’ 
in its ninth, “Harry Dee’ in its eleventh, “ Mostly Boys ” in 
its sixth, and “ Ethelred Preston ” in its fifth. 

Father Finn is about ó feet 9 inches tall, and well developed. 
Hair black and straight, and beginning to ‘lose ground.’ An 
expansive prominent forehead, deep-set gray eyes, large straight 
nose and well-formed mouth, altogether a pleasant face belonging 
to an interesting talker who delights in entertaining children and 
bantering his friends. 

Besides being a first-class story writer, Father Finn is much 
praised as a literary critic, his lectures at St. Xavier’s winning 
high commendation. He has written several plays, of which only 
one— Bethlehem ’’— has been given to the public. 

Father Finn very courteously answered some questions we put 


504 The Irish Monthly. 


to him (you know one feels like asking him questions and having 
to deal with him in general after reading his books), and we give 
our readers the benefit of his answers. If you seein our questions 
any intimation of personal ambition on our part to get at the secret 
of Father Finn’s success, and to turn it to account, we hereby 
refute such insinuation by giving the whole matter publicity. 

é“ Father, how and when did you first start writing ? ”’ 

é“ I began writing for publication at the suggestion of a brother 
scholastic now (Father John Weir, S.J.) about thirteen years ago. 
The first thing I wrote was ‘‘ Charlie’s Victory,” a short story. I 
wrote it at one sitting. In the beginning I had a knack of 
writing a short story at one sitting, which in these later years has 
left me. Up to the year 1891 my writings were confined to the 
pages of magazines and were published anonymously. My pen 
name was “ Neenah.’ In May of ’91 I published my first book, 
“ Peroy Wynn,” under my own name.” 

é Do you find writing hard work P ” 

“TI find it very exhausting work. It requires my complete 
attention. This completeness of attention makes it difficult, 
almost impossible for me to do any imaginatjve work during the 
school year. My time for writing is during the last part of the 
summer vacation. The first part I give to taking a good rest. If 
I succeed in getting this [ find writing delightful, and think 
nothing of making five or six thousand words a day. I write 
rapidly and correct at leisure, sometimes re-writing the entire 
story. Some of the happiest incidental details fill in neturally in 
this re-writing.”’ 

“ About the plots, Father ? ” 

é The plots come in a flash, like death, like a thief in the night, 
when they are least expected. I find that so long as I have one 
plot in my head there is no chance for the entrance of another till 
I have, as it were, exorcised it by committing it to paper. Then 
there are a few days or weeks or months of vacanoy, when all of s 
sudden a plot swoops down and enters into possession to the ex- 
clusion of everything else.” 

é“ Have you written much this year P”” 

é“ During the past year I have written but one story—a long 
short story of about twenty thousand words, I have been carry- 
ing about in my head for over a year and a half the plot for a new 
story which I hope to take in hand the coming summer. It is 


NA. 











Notes on New Books. 505 


very gratifying to me to learn that I may count among my friends 
the young ‘Britishers under the Southern Cross.’ Talking of 
young Britishers, the most beautiful, the noblest letter I have 
received thus far from my young friends of the English-speaking 
world (and letters of this kind have come fast and thick for some 
yesrs) came from an English boy.” 

The name of Father Finn’s latest story is “The Teacher 
Taught.” 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


1. Lefe of the Venerable Servant of God, Julse Bilisart, Foundress and 
First Supertor- General of the Ins/ttute of Staters of Notre Dame. By a 
Member of the same Congregation. (London and Leamington: Art 
and Book Company). 

This full and well-written biography of the Foundress of the 
Sisters of Notre Dame fills more than four hundred royal octavo 
pages, and is illustrated by ten excellent engravings; yet the price 
fixed upon it is only four shillings. The filial piety of her children is 
evidently bent on making Julie Billiart known as widely as possible. 
Much interesting information is also furnished about Pére Varin, and 
many other holy persons connected with the revival of religion after 
the Revolution. The printer has helped to make the book eminently 
readable; and altogether this venerable Foundress has received justice 
at the hands of her English daughters. Many houses of her Order 
flour‘sh in England, but it has not yet crossed the Irish Sea. 


2. Memories. By C. M. Home. (London: R. Washbourne). 

This is a rather long story for the young, filling two hundred and 
thirty pages. Miss Home—as we venture to call her in spite of the 
dubious initials ‘‘C. M.”— wields a practised pen, having published 
“ Redminton School” and “Claudius.” The incidents are sufficiently 
varied and are told in grammatical English, and we hope that youthful 
readers will find them interesting. It will be their own fault if they 
do not learn from the tale many useful lessons. But, for all that, 
there is wanting a certain spell, a certain glamour, which we desire 
even in stories for the young, to elevate and spiritualise the youthful 
imagination. 

Vor. xxvt. No. 803 36 


506 The Irish Monthly. 


3. Christian Philosophy: A Treatise on the Human Soul. By the 
Rev. John T. Driscoll, 8.T.L. (Benziger Brothers: New York, 
Cincinnati, Chicago). 

Father Driscoll, a distinguished student of the Catholic University 
of America, has proposed in this volume to “ set forth the main lines 
of Christian Philosophy as enunciated in the Catechism and as 
systematized by the Schoolmen, especially St. Thomas.” He seems to 
us to have succeeded admirably in his object. Evidently he has 
spared no pains to secure accuracy in his citations and references ; 
and, although a disciple of St. Thomas, he has studied carefully all 
the modern psychologists. The publishers have brought the book 
out in the most suitable manner, with excellent austere binding. 
We engage for it a welcome from the thoughtful readers to whom it 
is addressed. In an elaborate criticism on this work in the August 
number of Zhe American Ecclesiastical Review—one of the most solid, 
and at the same time most entertaining, periodicals of its kind in any 
language—the manifestly competent writer says that Father Driscoll’s 
book will be ‘ valuable to students who are already acquainted with. 
Catholic philosophy and who desire a ready general introduction to 
outside opinions; and doubly valuable to those who require the 
abiding light of that philosophy amid the shoals and fogs of the 
literature of modern psychology through which they may be obliged 
to pass.”’ 


4. Cyril Westward: The Story of a Grave Decision. By Henry 
Patrick Russell, late Vicar of St. Stephen’s, Davenport. (London 
and Leamington: Art and Book Company). 

This is one of the best books of its kind—namely, narratives of 
conversion thrown into the form of a novel. Miss Agnew’s 
“Geraldine, a Tale of Conscience,” had considerable vogue fifty 
years ago; and Cardinal Newman’s ‘‘Loss and Gain” will always 
be a classic. By the way, is it not strange that this grand and 
austere genius should throw his thoughts and feelings: into this 
peculiar form at so solemn a crisis of his history? Mr. H. P. Russell 
embodies in his controversial fiction two or three most interesting 
letters which he received from the Oratorian Cardinal. ‘'Oyril 
Westward” will hardly be read for the sake of the mere story, 
though several of the characters are well defined and the conversa- 
tions are lively enough. But, as we have said, it is a good contro- 
versial novel, and an up-to-date description of the motives which 
influence a convert from Anglicanism. The absence of headings to 
the chapters gives a blank look to the table of contents; but this is a 
very small point. The late Vicar of St. Stephen’s, Devonport, has 
given good reason for the faith that is in him. 





Notes on New Books. 507 


5, Strong as Death: a Story of the Irish Rebellion. By Mrs. Oharles 
M. Clarke. (Aberdeen; Moran & Co.) 

In her dedication, Mrs. Clarke (whose nom-de-plume was first 
‘* Miriam Drake’’) calls this exceedingly portly volume a reprint 
of an old story, which, she adds, was founded for the most part on 
oral tradition. When this novel originally appeared, it filled three 
volumes. The type of the present excellent reprint, though very 
clear, is small and crushes a great deal into each page; and yet 
there are five hundred and forty of them. Some of the real history 
of Ireland before the Union is pressed into the service of the novelist, 
and she manages cleverly a great variety of dramatic incident, 
‘* Strong as Death ” is a notable contribution to the Centenary litera- 
ture of ’Ninety-Hight. 

6, “The Religious Life and Vows” is a treatise translated by 
O. 8. B., from the French of Monseigneur Charles Gay. It is 
published by Burns and Oates, and is introduced by Father Gordon 
of the London Oratory, who, however, pays the book too high a com- 
pliment when comparing it to the writings of Father Faber. In 
place of a table of contents the last ten pages are given to a synop- 
tical table of the preceding two hundred and sixty pages. The 
nature and the motives of each of the vows are discussed in separate 
chapters with an unction and solidity which will render this work a 
valuable addition to the library of a religious community. 

7. Medstation Leaflets. By a Father of the Suciety of Jesus. 
(London: Burns and Oates). 

There is no sentence-making in this book. Indeed there is 
hardly a complete sentence in the hundred and twenty pages. Very 
full and systematic heads are given of thirty-five meditations; and 
then the same is done for the subjects of twenty-one considerations. 
We think that very many will find the book particularly useful. The 
form is cheap and convenient. 

8. The most recent publications of the Catholic Truth Society 
(69 Southwark Bridge Road, London, 8.E.) are Sir Francis Cruise’s 
clear and conclusive summary of the arguments and investigations 
which answer ‘‘ Thomas a Kempis ” to the question “ Who was the 
Author of Zhe Imitation of Christ 8” An able and learned lecture by 
the Rey. Dr. O'Riordan of Limerick, on Draper’s ‘‘ Conflict between 
Science and Religion.” Mr. James Britten’s account of Mr. John 
Kensit as a “A Prominent Protestant”; and a penny biography of 
St. Martin by Lady Amabel Kerr, 

9. Manual of Religious Instruction, compiled to correspond with the 
requirements of the Diocesan Programme of Waterford and Lismore, 
(Waterford: Harvey and Co.) 


508 The Irish Monthly. 


‘his admirable and most practical manual is given in good 
serviceable binding for sixpence. Solid information is given very 
concisely on a great number of subjects suggested by the Catechism ; 
and these are carefully allotted respectively to the advanced Junior 
Class, Middle, and Senior; and finally to the Monitorial and Inter- 
mediate Class. We venture to supply an omission on the title-page 
by naming the author, the Rev. P. Power, Diocesan Inspector. 


10. Catholic Teaching, for Children. By Winifride Wray. (London: 
Washbourne). 

This excellent book is recommended very earnestly by Dr. Bag- 
shawe, Bishop of Nottingham, who implies that such a book would 
have an enormous sale if it had been written fur Protestants, but, as 
it is written for Catholic children, it will not be so quickly out of 
print. Thore is shameful carelessness about such matters among 
even well-disposed Catholics. The illustrations in many books add 
nothing to the value or attractiveness of the book. The pictures of 
the present book are very good in themselves, and very well repro- 
duced. The same publisher has issued a very compact and cheap, 
but of course not quite complete, Roman Missal, which he calls 
‘CA Popular Missal for the use of the Laity.” 


11. 4 Memortal of the Sacred Heart. By the Rev. George William 
Clifford, S.J. (Munresa Press, Roehampton, London, 8.W.) 

This is a singularly holy and interesting little book, and anything 
but commonplace. A little sketch of Father Clifford’s uneventful 
life is preceded by a portrait which recalls his appearance vividly to 
one who saw him last forty years ago. Indeed the first sentences 
ever written in honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by the hand 
that guides this pen were written at that remote date at the bidding 
of Father Clifford when Assistant to the well-remembored Novice- 
Master, Father Tracy Clarke, 8.J. It is well to have this little relic 
of a saintly man. The panegyric on Silence (pp. 67-72) is the most 
striking thing in the book. 


12. About twenty years ago two small books of religious verse 
were published in Dublin under the titles of ‘‘Emmanuel” and 
‘*Madonna.” Both of them went through several editions, and have 
long been out of print. When they reappear, there will be a different 
combination of materials and a change of name. This makes the 
author of them more content to let each of the names be adopted by 
a pious periodical, one on each side of the Atlantic. ‘ Emmanuel” 
—which for the sake of its meaning (‘God with us”) was applied 
first to my collection of eucharistic verses—is the title of the official 
monthly of the Priests’ Eucharistic League, which has for four years 





Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 509 


been edited by the Bishop of Covington, in the United States; and 
“& Madonna ” is now taken for the second time as the name of an 
extremely neat magazine for the Children of Mary. It is published 
every three months for two pence. It is true to its name; and by 
means of its compact double columns it crushes a great deal of 
interesting and edifying matter into each part. May it flourish 
apace, and may it abide! Nay, we hope that it will soon pay us a 
monthly visit, like the Sancta Maria of Belfast. This last is more in 
the nature of a general religious magazine, and in both literary merit 
and typographical get-up it does credit to our northern metropolis. 

13. Alcoholssm and Susctdal Impulses. By W.O. Sullivan, M.D. 
(London; Adlard and Son). 

This brochure, which is a reprint from “ The Journal of Mental 
Science,” does not come within the sphere of our critical jurisdiction ; 
and indeed Dr. Sullivan’s name would hardly figure among our book- 
notes except as an indication of the success already gained by a son 
of the late very gifted Irishman, William K. Sullivan. Dr. Sullivan 
is now Deputy Medical (fficer of the Liverpool Prison, and very 
distinguished in the special department of medical science to which 
the present Paper is a valuable contribution. 


PIGEONHOLE PARAGRAPHS. 
LIX. 


Fichet in his Arcana Studiorum Methodus advises the young 
student to know many subjects but to profess one, to have a 
definite object, to love labour and despise pleasure (or rather to 
take pleasure in labour); to gain learning by hearing, reading, 
teaching, and writing. It is best to read with another, to read 
not muita but multum, and to study original books (not the 
summaries drawn from them). He lays great stress on the 
advantage of teaching. “The moment you have made any pro- 
gress in a study, strive if possible to be teaching all day. Teach 
what you know, if you don’t know it all. Take special care, 
either by begging or bribing, to have a person to whom you can 
repeat whatever you please. I have read many things,” 

ye 


510 The Irish Monthly. 


continues Fichet, “but a month’s interval so destroyed all 
recollection of them that I hardly remembered them on reading 
again. But what I have taught others I know as well as the 
limbs of my body. They are as clear as daylight before my eyes. 
My knowledge of them is firm, certain and fruitful. I coud 
hardly believe that Death itself would extinguish the remem- 
brance of them.” 
® * há 


The following sonnet, addressed by Mr. William Watson to 
Aubrey de Vere, appeared in The Daily Chronicle a few years ago. 
It may not be preserved in any of Mr. Watson’s volumes — 


Poet, whose grave and strenuous lyre is still 
For Truth and Duty strung; whose art eschews 
The lighter graces of tho softer Muse, 
Disdainful of mere craftaman’s idle skill ; 
Yours is a soul for visionary hill, 
Watching and hearking for ethereal news, 
Looking beyond life’s storms and death’s cold dews 
To babitations of the Eternal Will. 


Not mine your mystic creed ; not mine, in prayer 
And worship, at the ensanguined Cross to knee! ; 

But when 1 mark your path how pure and fair, 
How based on love, on passion for man’s weal, 

My mind, half envying what it cannot share, 
Reveres the reverence which it cannot feel 


w * w 


De Maistre forbids us to give the name of geniue to a man 
who abuses his gift. He turns finely this line of Voltaire’s 
against Voltaire himself : 


Une dme corrompue ne peut étre sublime. 
“ A soul corrupt can never be sublime.’ 
x ” ” 


Good books and bad books—what a power they wiel d 
“mong the reprobates are there any more guilty than the men 


Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 511 


who left behind them books attractively written but poisoning the 
mind and corrupting the heart? This wide influence of the 
written word is well expressed by the quaint hexameter which 


alludes to the quill writing on parchment that is covered with 
wax :— 


Anser, apis, vitulus populos et regna gubernant. 


‘* Realms and peoples ruled we see 
By the goose, the calf, the bee,” 


w * * 


A poor woman, who could suffer and pray but could not read, 
told me that she says the rosary every day for the poor souls in 
Purgatory, “especially for those who have no one to pray for 
them.” This seems to me a good phrase, better than the ordinary 
ones, dimes délaissées,” ‘‘ abandoned souls,” ‘‘ forgotten souls.” All 
these other expressions charge some one with blame in the matter, 
whereas some may be detained in Purgatory so long as to 
survive all their kinsfolk and friends, and there may be others, 
who, even at first, when they are called out of life, leave 
no one behind who is bound to them by special ties. Let us, then, 
imitate the charity of this poor woman, and pray for the souls in 
Purgatory, especially those who have no one to pray for them. 


* * há 


I remember a pleasant essay which gave instructions to 
youthful literary aspirants “ How to fail in Literature ’—how to 
make sure of being rejected by editors; and one of the hints was 
to write verses headed “ Only.” And then the writer—probably 
Mr. Andrew Lang—improvised a few insipid stanzas, each 
beginning with only. In spite of these associations I give 
hospitality to the following waif from an American newspaper 
where it was attributed to “ Charlotte Murray, of whom I know 
nothing mors. 


Only a word for the Master, 
Lovingly, quietly said, 
Only a word! 
Yet the Master heard, 
And some fainting hearts were fed. 


512 


The Irish Monthly. 


Only a look of remembrance, 
Sorrowful, gentle, and deep 
Only a look! 
Yet the strong man shook, 
And he went out alone to weep. 


Only some act of devotion, 
Willingly, joyfully done, 
‘Surely ’twas nought,”’ 

(So the proud world thought), 

But yet souls for Christ were won! 


Only a hour with the children, 
Pleasantly, cheerfully given, 
Yet seed was sown, 
In that hour alone, 
Which would bring forth fruit for heaven. 


“ Only ’’—but Jesus is looking 
Constantly, tenderly down 
To carth, and sees 
Those who strive to please, 
And their love He loves to crown. 





OCTOBER, 1808. 





“SONNETS ON THE SONNET.” 
Criticism AND AFTERMATH. 


ik is many & year since Father Joseph Farrell (God rest his 

soul!) remarked to me with surprise and pleasure the large 
number of separate works reprinted from the pages of this 
Magazine. They number now some thirty or forty volumes 
issued by various publishers on both sides of the Atlantic—novels, 
essays, poems, histories, and biographies. To this miscellaneous 
collection we have sometimes given the name of “ The [risH 
Monrtuty Library.” It has, last of all, received a curious addition - 
in the volume named at the head of this article—a volume which 
could never have been put together without the complicity of this 
Magazine. 

This ‘‘ Ir1sH Montutiy Library ” embraced such solid work as 
Father Edmund O’Reilly’s valuable essays on “ The Relations of 
the Church to Society,” such brilliant work as Father Joseph 
Farrell’s ‘‘ Lectures of a Certain Professor,” such exquisite work 
as Lady Gilbert’s “ Marcella Grace,” and “The Wild Birds of 
Killeevy,” such admirable work as Mrs. Atkinson’s ‘‘ Essays 
chiefly on Irish subjects.” Even of volumes of verse like Alice 
Esmonde’s ‘‘Songs of Remembrance” every line had first 
appeared in Tur Irtsn MoNTHLY. | 

As we have said, the newest volume of the series, ‘‘ Sonnets on 
the Sonnet,” could. hardly have come to maturity if it had not 
first been printed tentatively by instalments in these pages. It is 


Vou. xxvi. No. 304. . 37 


514 The Irish Monthly. 


fitting therefore that in these pages also its after fate should be 
chronicled, as it has been our custom to do for the books just 
enumerated and for many others. 

So far it has fared exceedingly well. In the short time that 
has elapsed since the old historic firm of Longmans, Green and 
Company sent it forth into the world, it has received very favour- 
able notice from The Times, Scotsman, Academy, Illustrated London 
News, Literaturc, Notes and Queries, Tablet, Weekly egister, 
The Speaker, St. James's Gazette, Glasgow Herald, Daily Express, 
Independent, Irtsh Figaro, Cork Examiner, The Month, and many 
others. Some of these critical remarks may be repeated here; 
and these prose extracts may be separated by one or other of the 
half-dozen sonnets on the sonnet which came into our hands too 
late to be included in the book that bears that name. The first of 
these is signed P. A. 8., which our readers will recognise as the 
initials of an eloquent priest of the diocese of Cloyne to whom our 
Magazine owes such prose as “ The Two Civilizations’ and such 
verse as “ Sentan the Culdes.” 


I rut my trembling bird, with down-drooped wing, 
Within a golden cage that hung before 
The Temple of the Muses; closed the door, 
And stept aside, silent and wondering 
Whether the captive minstrel-soul would sing— 
She, whose aspiring fancy fain would soar 
To the far Pisgah-heights, whose altars bore 
Traces of the lordiiest poets’ ministering. 


And lo! the fourteen prison-bars did glow 
Into a golden lyre, serenely strung, 

And o’er the quivering chords did sweetly flow 
The wavelets of an echo, swiftly sprung 

From the contagious rage, the frenzied glow: 
For here had Milton, here had Petrarch sung. 


The Times delivers its verdict in gentler accents than one has been 
used to associate with Zhe Thunderer. It begins with what seems 
to be a mistake, remarking that this anthology of Sonnets on the 
Sonnet “ig not the first of its kind but is perhaps the most 
complete and the best.” Is it not the first that gathers together 
all the sonnets that have the sonnet itself for its theme? For 
surely even the amiable critic of 7he 7¢mes cannot mean that, as 
a general sonnet-anthology, it is better than those that had their 
choice amongst the sonnets of all subjects and of all centuries, 


Sonnets on the Sonnet. 515 


It may be a surprise to some to find such a book bearing the signature of a 
learned Jesuit, but they should remember that the Society of Jesus has always 
Piqued itself on keeping abreast with all the legitimate interests of mankind, 
poetry included : and certainly Father Russell shows himself not only appreciative 
of serious poetry, but gifted with a decidedly humorous vein, and with no little 
power of himself writing sonnets. Dividing his subject into “The Structure of the 
Sonnet,’’ “The Nature of the Sonnet,’’ ‘‘ The Masters of the Sonnet,” ‘‘ The 
Sonnet’s Latest Votaries,’’ and “The Sonnet’s Kindred Self- Described,’’ the compiler 
gives us verses from many authors great and small, and in more languages than 
one, while as examples of “ The Sonnet’s Kindred’? we have triolets, rondeaux, 
villanelles, and many more varieties, In the first part we open with a 16th century 
Spanish sonnet, and pass to Théophile Gautier in French, and Augustus Schlegel 
in German ; later we have the famous sonnets of Wordsworth (“ The Sonnet’s 
Scanty Plot of Ground ’’), of Keats, and of Rossetti, with many less celebrated but 
sometimes excellent in their way; and lastly, we have some very admirable 
sonnets by Carducci and other foreign writers with good translations attached. 
‘The reader may exclaim with Biron ‘‘ Tush! none but minstrels like of sonneting,”’ 
but certainly Mr. Russell’s anthology shows us that the minstrels themselves 


regard their craft and its results with an enthusiasm which is very likely to prove 
infectious. 


As we promised to make this paper resemble streaked bacon by 
inserting a silver streak of verse between every two layers of 
prose, we shall give next a sonnet that came to us from an English 
parsonage when the book was already in print. The writer, 
being unaware of our objection to anonymity, uses the signature 
“ Cresandia,”’ in which we detect an anagram of her abode. 


The sonnet is a dainty gem of rhyme, 

Where ten sweet syllables may smoothly flow 
Through fourteen lines, all neatly set a-row, 
And linked together with harmonious chime ; 
Where some grave poet, with a thought sublime, 
May teach a thousand listening hearts to glow ; 
Or, word by word, as fancies come and go, 

A lighter muse may charm the flight of time. 
Will Shakespere wrought it, all in purest gold ; 
Austerer beauty grew ‘neath Milton's hand ; 
"Mid Wordsworth’s bays it glittered like a star. 
And thou, presumptuons pen, dar’st thou ?—witbhold 
Nor dream to mingle with that deathless band 
But humbly follow thou, afar—afar. 


The Scotsman begins by saying that our book “is probably the 
fullest collection yet made of self-conscious sonnets.” But is it 
not the first? Ought not “certainly” be substituted here for 
‘probably ” and “ only ” for “ fullest ”’ ? 


516 The Irish Monthly. 


Every reader of poetry knows one or two sonnets, such as the famous one by 
the Spaniard Mendoza, or Rossetti’s ‘‘ A Sonnet is an Moment’s Monument,” in 
which the point is made by some felicitous harmonising of the formal perfections 
of the sonuet with thoughts about it as a verse-form. But Mr. Russell has got 
together no less than a hundred and fifty-seven pieces of this kind, drawn from 
medieval and modern literature. The poems, which include French, German, and 
Italian sounete, are classified according to an intelligent scheme. Some thirty of 
them have been written specially for the compilation, and an appendix gives a 
choice of similar poems in other forms, triolets which discourse about the formal 
difficulties of the triolet, villanelles that extol the beauties of villanelle, and soforth. 
Then there is a selection of critical dicta in prose about the sonnet. The book isa 
little late. It is no longer the fashion, as it was ten years ago, for every youn: 
poet to try his 'prentice hand upon the sonnet or the old French forms. Nowadays 
the object is to be as formally formless as possible. But a metrical craftsman in 
search of ‘‘styles’’ or a critic interested in the sonnet-form, could not find a richer 
book of its kind ; and as the sonnet seems bound to go on for ever, while the rondel, 
triolet, and the villanelle can only come and go, the collection should be welcome 
to no narrow circle of readers. 


Notes and Queries says that in this collection ‘an agreeable 
idea is agreeably carried out,” and calls it “a volume which the 
lover of poetry will gladly put on his ghelves.” This periodical 
itself contributed to the completeness of our collection, as we 
indeed mentioned in a sonnet which we thought it well to suppress. 
But though suppressed sonnets are not quite as bad as suppressed 
gout, there is a great deal of force in that question of one of 
Job’s comforters: ‘‘Conceptum sermonem quis continere potest?” 


Let’s build a book, we said, whereof each page, 
Spacious withal, shall nought display upon it 
Save introspective, egotistic sonnet, 

‘The sonnet’s form to fix, its worth to gauge. 

With such a theme the Muse may shock the sage 
As if a bee had crept within her bonnet ; 

Yet shall our book find readers keen to con it, 

E'en in this prosy, sonnet-hating age. 


O Inish Montucy! thy October Number 
ln '87 first this qucst began ; 
Next that receptacle of learned lumber, 
Hight Notes and Queries, to our succour ran. 
A few originals the book encumber : 
The rest are pilfcred whencesoc’er we can. 


The reader by referring to the postscript of the volume that 
is the subject of the present discussion will probably be able 
to conjecture a reason why any utterance of The Weekly Register 
on the poetic artis likely to be instructive. After some intro- 














Sonnets on the Sonnet. 517 


Cuctory remarks, this critic speaks thus of our book :— 


It is a surprisingly various Louquet. From the jesting essays in which 
Mendoza aud Lope count their lines, to Wordsworth’s and Rossetti’s protestations 
of delightful bondage, and to more unfamiliar praises of the sonnet in various 
languages, Father Russell shows a comprehensive acquaintance with all that has 
been said in prose or verse upon his theme. Catholic writers are remarkably 
conspicuous among the cultivators of this narrow corner in the ‘‘ scanty plot of 
ground.” But that somewhat sterile and bleak quotation is less appropriate to 
the genius of the sonnet than Milton’s description of strict Eden, inexhaustible in 
enclosed felicities : — 


To all delight of human sense exposed, 
In narrow room Nature’s whole wealth; yea, more! 


There are three French sonnets on the Sonnet which seem to 
have a fair claim to be included in this aftermath. One of them, 
by Louis Guibert, ought to have been grouped with several that 
rang the changes upon Boileau’s famous line about the faultless 
sonnet and the long poem and their comparative worth :— 


Oui, certe, un beau sonnet vaut seul tout un poeme ; 
Mais c’est fortune exquise et bien rare vraiment 
Que de mettre la main sur un tel diamant: 

Le sonnettiste heureux est ]’artiste supréme. 
Ballade ou madrigal, romance, épitre méme, 

Rien d’un cadre aussi fin n’entoure un compliment. 
‘Trouvez, s’il est possible, un écrin plus charmant 
Pour présenter son coeur & la femme qu’on aime? 


Le coffret tout d’abord plait ct seduit les yeux 

Par son étrange cclat, son travail merveilleux ; 

Mais plus riche il parait, plus, quand votre main l’ouvre, 
La perle, en son nid d’or, brille aux regards surpris, . 
Ainsi, dans les splendeurs du vers qui la recouvre, 

La penséc ingénue acquiert un nouveau prix. 


Another by Louis Goujon, is addressed to a lady who had 
expressed her sovereign contempt for sonnets of every kind :'— 


Pourquoi ce fier mépris pour le sonnet, Madame ? 
Co moule de Pétrarque est cher aux amoureux : 
Dans cette coupe d’or tout breuvage est de flamme, 
Et le caprice emplit ses contours rigoureux ! 


O’est un splendide écrin pour les joyaux de l'áme : 
Lui seul peut recevoir dans ses vers peu nombreux 
Les rimes de la joie et les sanglots d'un drame, 
Tout ce que l'art ancien a de plus savoureux. 


La Muse lui confie,—encor mieux qu’au potme, — 
Ie sujet qni réclame une forme supréme, 
, Le tour ingenieux qui acduit l’avenir. 


518 The Irish Monthly. 


Jettez donc aux buissons votre erreur insensée ! 
Ce vase de cristal enferme la pensée, 


Cette fille de Dieu que nul ne peut bannir. 


Finally a third Frenchman, M. Gleize, will furnish the last 
example of an old trick, pretending to describe, line by line, the 
mechanical construction of a sonnet : — 


Je voudrais bien faire un sonnet, 

Mais je ne sais comment m’y prendre. 
Mon cerveau cherche a le comprendre, 
Mais ma Muse refuse net. 


Quoi! m’avouer vaincu! me rendre ! 
Entrons vite en mon cabinet :- 
Alignons de rimes en et 

Avec d'autres faites en cndre ; 


En voila huit déji, c’est sir. 


Le style n'cn est pas bien pur, 
Mais ca fait onze tout do méme. 


Un petit effort, puis, voila 
Que j’en ai douze ; et je vois lá 
Venir bientdt le quatorziéme, 


The weekly literary journal, Literature, which has been started 
by The Times, is considered to be now so firmly established that 
the “ Vagabond Club ” lately entertained in its honour Mr. H. D. 
Traill, its editor. Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins (of “The Dolly 
Dialogues’) was chairman, and Mr. Andrew Lang (of many 
things) was one of the speakers. The reason why we chronicle 
this event is that Literature has had the discrimination to recognise 
the merits of a certain “ very interesting anthology ’’—the subject, 
namely, of the present paper. The Reviewer, however, blames 
the Anthologist for having included, in an appendix of “ The 
Sonnet’s Kindred Seilf-described,”’ hexameters that describe the 
nature and structure of the Hexameter. He adds that, if English 
verses in classical metres are to be given, the very interesting 
é“ Experiments ” of Tennyson ought not to have been ignored : 


These lame hexameters the strong-winged music of Homer! 
No, but a most burlesque barbarous experiment— 


And we should have also his 


“Tiny poem 
. All composed in a metre of Catullus,” 














Sonnets on the Sonnet. 519 


There is one seotion of the volume which might have been 
extended indefinitely, the catena of pronouncements in prose about 
the nature and functions of the sonnet and its most stringent 
laws. To these I should certainly have added the following 
weighty dictum from The Guardian of August 25, 1897, if it had 
come under my notice in time — 

é The creation of the Sonnet is perhaps the greatest achieve- 
ment of Christian literature in the field of pure art. ‘The metrical 
forms employed by Greek and Roman poets for the epic, for the 
drama, for the ode, are at least as successful as our own; but for 
the expression of a single thought, fused into poetic life by the 
warmth of a single emotion, a single imagination, they had 
nothing which approaches the sonnet of Petrarch, Ronsard, and 
Wordsworth.” 

Another shortcoming was our forgetting to avail ourselves of 
& permission given by Mr. Theodore Watts Dunton to make use of 
a letter in which he was so good as to explain his view of the 
sonnet as put forward in his famous sonnet called “ The Sonnet’s 
Voice: a Metrical Lesson by the Sea-shore.” The following is 
an extract from a letter which gave me his kind permission, and 
also Mr. Swinburne’s, to have them represented in my volume. 

“With regard to my sonnet ‘The Sonnet’s Voice’ a wide- 
spread misunderstanding seems to prevail which, should you 
append notes to your selection, you might do me the service of 
correcting. I send the cutting from the proof of an article on the 
sonnet which will appear in about a week in Chamber's 
Encyclopedia. The truth of the matter is this: years ago, when 
the late D. G. Rossetti and I were staying at the seaside together 
(at Bognor, I think) we agreed to write each a sonneton the 
sonnet. He was to express the poetical spirit of the sonnet; I 
was to state and describe its metrical form. His sonnet beginning 
‘A sonnet is a moment’s monument,’ now prefixed tothe ‘ House 
of Life,’ was one of the results of this undertaking. I soon found 
that the sonnet of octave and sestet divided itself into four distinct 
varieties and that, I must write four sonnets to Rossetti’sone. These 
were all written, and Rossetti years afterwards urged me to print 
them in the A¢heneum or in some other literary journal. In 18811 
did print one of them in the Atheneum-—the sonnet you are enquiring 

about—and it attracted more attention than I at all expected, and 
more attention than I think it deserved. It got reprinted first + 


520 The Irtsh Monthly. 


Mr. Hall Caine’s Anthology, then in Mr. Sharp’s, then by Karl 
Lentzner in Germany, then in ‘ Popular Poets of the Period,’ and 
then in America several times. From this has resulted the 
misunderstandiog to which I would draw your attention. It is 
erroneously assumed that the movement of the ‘Sonnet’s Voice’ 
is meant to exemplify the movement of each of the four varieties 
of the Petrarchan sonnet, whereas it exemplies the movement of 
one variety only. ‘I'he only critic, as far as I know, who saw that 
‘The Sonnet’s Voice ” was meant to formulate the metrical scheme 
of one variety only of the Petrachan sonnet was Mr. Mackenzie 
Bell in his essay on ‘Some Aspects of Contemporary Poetry’ 
prefixed to Popular Poets of the Period (Griffith Farren & Co., 
1889) in which, referring to my article on the sonnet in the 
Encyclopedia Brittaniea, he says: ‘Mr. Watts is very far from 
asserting that all sonnets of octave and sestet move, or ought to 
move, by way of flow and ebb. On the contrary he contends that 
some of the best Petrarchan sonnets do not move by way of flow 
and ebb, but after the octave is finished go on and achieve 3 
climacteric effect in the sestet. This is why in making my 
selection from his poems for the present volume I was careful to 
give an example of each of his own methods of writing sonnets.’ ” 
Many Americans are represented among the contributors t« 

‘Sonnets on the Sonnet;’’ and perhaps on this account many 
American critics have been very generous in their appreciation of 
the collection. One of these is the editor of The American 
Ecclesiastical Review, the most varied perhaps, and most entertain- 
ing, and at the same time moat solidly learned of the periodicals 
that appeal to priestly readers.* This critique embodies the 
following sonnet upon our “ Sonnets on the Sonnet,” written by 
Miss Eleanor C. Donnelly, ‘‘whose name (says the American 
editor) stands highest on our list of American Catholic poetesses.” 

These Sonnets on the Sonnet please me well, 

Brilliant as diamonds on a golden chain— 

With, here, a raby Rondeau: there, again, 

A pearl-like Triolet or Villanelle, — 

Each seems the tongue of some enchanted bell, 

Ringing the changes on one pleasant tune, 


Amid the roses of a grassy dell, 
Where it is always summer—always June. 


* None of these can boast of so attractive and yet so thoroughly appropriate an 
item as the serial story, ' My New Curate,” now running through this Review. 


Sonnets on the Sonnet. 521 


Sweet-syllabled, they echo, far and near, 
Measures of rare and honeyed harmony : 

As if to instance (from both quick and dead) 
How much of art and loveliness austere, 

Of grace and ingenuity can be, 

In fourteen polished lines, incasketed. 


A poet nearer home, Mr. Thomas Auld of Belfast, has also 
written a sonnet on the “ Sonnets on the Sonnet.” 


How hath the sonnet flow’r within our ground 
Flourished since first Sir Philip Sidney brought 
From warmer clime the tender bloom, and taught . 

This foreign plant to shed its fragrance round 

Our English garden ! Those in shackles bound 
Of love have ease within the sonnet sought : 

And wiser men, in fourteen lines well wrought, 

A vehicle for piety have found. 


Now is the sonnet loved; but love is blind— 
Much is it loved but little understood : 
But here, where taste and learning jointly sway, 
The sonnet-lover may the sonnet find 
Explained ; as if, within a garden good, 
A rose should speak and all her secrets say. 

Among the mistakes pointed out by various critics, we may 
notice that Edith Thomas is a married lady, and Mr. Menley’s 
first baptismal name is William, not Walter. The sonnet given 
by mistake as anonymous at page 16 was in reality written by the 
Rev. Dr. Frederick C. Kolbe, whose name is attached to it at p. 73. 

Though there are many Irish names amongst the contributors 
to this “‘ unique anthology ” as Miss Donnelly calls it in the title 
of her sonnet—it is only of late years that the sonnet form has 
been much used by Irish writers of verse. “ In the Irish language 
itself,’ Dr. Douglas Hyde informs us in a private letter, ‘a few 
sonnets have been written, but they are of modern date and no 
particular merit. Despite their acquaintance with French, Spanish, 
and often Italian, from which they translated much, the 
seventeenth-century Irish do not seem to have taken over the 
sonnet-form—which seems curious.” 

Mr. Quiller Couch honoured our collection by making it the 
subject of a very interesting ‘ Literary Causerie ” in The Speaker. 
Buta still greater favour was bestowed on the modest volume by 
The Saturday Review—namely a full column of its best sneers and 
most elaborate abuse. This criticism is headed very happily “ The 
Sonnet in the Gutter,”’ liquid mud being liberally supplied on 


522 The Irish Monthly. 


the Sabbatarian premises. If plodding mediocrity could (like 
genius) be “ snuffed out by an article,” this gush of gutter would 
have settled for ever the herein-before-so-often-named ‘ Sonnets 
on the Sonnet,”’ whereas this cleverly disguised puff has served 
only to circulate a few additional copies of the book—a result no 
doubt desired by the critic, who probably is not at all ferocious 
in private life. 

One of the most brilliant achievements of recent years in sonnet- 
craft is the beautifully illustrated volume “ At the Gates of Song ” 
by Mr. Lloyd Mifflin of Pennsylvania, which ran into a second 
edition in a few months, and has received the warm praise of critics 
of high authority. He, too, has written a sonnet on the Sonnet: 


Still let a due reserve the Muse attend 
Who threads the Sonnet’s labyrinth. As some bell 
That tolls for vespers in a twilight dell, 
So in the octave, let her voice suspend 
Her pomp of phrase. The sestet may ascend 
Slowly triumphant, like an organ-swell 
In opulent grandeur rising—pause, and dwell 
With gathering glories to its dolphin end: 
So, oft at eve around the sunset doors, 
From up-piled splendors of some crimson cloud 
Storm-based with dark—unrolling like a scroll— 
Forth th’ accumulated thunder pours 
Across the listening valleys, long and loud, 
With low reverberations roll on roll ! 


Some have objected to the section entitled the “ The Sonnet’s 
Kindred Self-described ” as a mere intrusion, while others have 
welcomed it as specially interesting. There is indeed one little 
item that has no right to be included. ‘‘ My First Rondeau” has 
a locus standi, for it describes the construction of a rondeau; but 
é“ My last Rondeau” is in reality a serious poem on death. 
Strange to say, this page appears to have been connected with the 
“dying hour” of Gladstone. In the “ London Correspondence ” 
of The Daily Express of May 20, 1898, this paragraph ocours :— 

‘* Apparently almost the last book to which Mr. Gladstone gave ear was a little 


volume of religious poems compiled by the Rev. Matthew Russell, in which occurs 


the verse : 
My dying hour, how near art thou? 


Or near or far my head I bow 
Before God’s ordinance supreme. 
The book reached Hawarden within the last few weeks. One of the reliefs of 
the dying stateman was to hear favourite hymns read.” 


Sonnets on the Sonnet. 523 


As a rondeau takes up almost as little space as a sonnet, let 
us quote “ Land! Land!” from Tux Irish Monruty of February, 


1891. 
My dying hour, how near art thou ? 
Or near or far, my head I bow 
Before God's ordinance supreme ; 
But ah, how priceless then will seem 
Each moment rashly squandered now ! 


Teach me, for thou canst teach me, how 
These fleeting instants to endow: 
With worth that may the past redeem, 
My dying hour! 


My barque, that late with buoyant prow 
The sunny waves did gaily plough, 
Now through the sunset’s fading gleam 
Drifts dimly shoreward in a dream. 
I feel the land-breeze on my brow, 
My dying hour! 


The statement which we have quoted from the London 
correspondent of The Daily Express, and which, as he added 
subsequently, he made on the authority of a gentleman who had 
just returned from a visit to Hawarden during the last days of 
Mr. Gladstone’s life—these almost sacred associations lend a 
special interest and value to the 88th page of the volume to which 
we have now directed the attention of our readers more than long 


enough. 
M. R. 


f 524 ) 


JEMMY AND BETTY. 
AN ULSTER CONJUGAL ECLOGUE. 


[This admirable piece of dialect, ‘‘ wrote down, prentet, and put out, just the 
way the people spakes,’’ was contributed by “H” to The Ulster Journal of 
Archeology in 1858. It is worthy of a place beside Sir Samuel Ferguson’s ‘* Loyal 
Orangeman’’ Iwrag Montuty, Vol. XVII, page 57, The writer explained in 
footnotes ninety of the expressions made use of, but we shall suppose the reader tu 
be capable of understanding most of them, cutting down the notes to 238. ] 


J EMMY. 
Auch ! auch! there's another day over, 
An’ the year’s comin’ fast to an endin’ ; 
But two or three sich will desthroy me, 
For my cough’s getting worse, an’ A'm' waker. 
Oh! Betty McCreedy, what ails ye, 
That ye can’t keep a wee bit o’ fire on? 
Go’ long, bring some clods from the turf-stack, 
For my toes an’ my fingers is nippin’. 


Betty. 


What’s the manin’ of all this norration, 
An’ me lookin’ after the childre ? 

A’m sure both my ancles is achin’ 
With throttin’ about since the mornin’. 
If ye hev been outside fur a wee while, 
It’s many another’s condition. 

An’ the day is n’t long; A can tell ye, 
It’s har’ly an hour since yer dinner. 
An’, Jemmy, A may as well say it, 
There’s no use at all in desavin’, 

It’s croaser and crosser ye re gettin’ 
Till my very heart’s scalded wi’ sorra. 
Deed an’ d»ubles? A’ll bear it no longer. 


J EMMY. 


Well, Betty, bad luck to tho liars, 

But there’s one of us greatly mistaken. 
From mornin’ till day-light-goin’ workin’. 
Clanin’ corn on the top o’ the knowe-head,’ 
The wine whistled roun’ me like bag-pipes, 
An’ cut me in two like a razure. 


'IIm ?Vorily, verily. *Knoll, hill, 


Jemmy and Betty. 525 


A thrimbled an’ shuck like an aspy, 
While the dhraps from my nose, o’ coul’ wather, 
Might ’a’ dhrownded a middle-sized kitlin’. 


Berry. 


Och! indeed ye’re a scar-crow, that’s sartin : 
Lord help the poor woman that owes ye! 
But ye needn’t be cursin’ an’ swearin’ 

An’ still castin’ up an’ upbraidin’. 

If ye think there’s a liar between us, 

Just look in the glass an’ ye'll see him. 
(Och! the bitterest words in his gizzard 

Is the best A can get thram my husband). 


JEMMY. 


Will ye nivver lave off aggravatin’ ? 
Now quet an’ hev done. A forbid ye.— 


Betry. 


Och, indeed ’twas yerself that begun it, 
So A’ll give ye back-tulk till ye’re tired. 
There was Johnny Kincaid in the loanin’,‘ 
Was afther me more nor a twel’month, 
When you hadn’t yit come acrass me, 

But A hadn’t the luck for to git him. 

He’s a corpolar now on a pinsion, 

An’ keeps up his wife like a lady, 

An’s nate an’ well dhrest of a Sunday. 


JEMMY. 


Well, well! but there’ no use in talkin’, 
His crap disn’t fail him in harvest ; 

An’ forby,* Paddy Shales isn’t paid yet 
For makin’ the coat that I’m wearin’. 
More betoken,‘ it wants to be mended, 
But ye nivver titch needle nor thim’le. 
There's my wais’coat is hingin’ in ribbons, 
With only two buttons to houl’ it; 

An’ my breeches in dyuggins’’ an’ tatthers, 
Till A can’t go to meetin’ on Sunday. 


‘Lane, boreen. ‘Besides, ‘Another fact to the purpose. — ‘Shreds. 


526 


The Irish Monthly. 


Berry. 


Och! hev done with yer schamin’ religion, 
For ye nivver was greedy for Gospel. 
"Deed, bad luck to the toe ye’d go near it, 
If we cloth’d ye as fine as Square Johnston. 
Ye wud slunge® at the backs o’ the ditches, 
With one or two others, yer fellas, 
A-huntin’ the dogs at the rat-holes. 


J EMMY. 


But A’m used to be clanely an’ dacent, 
An’ so wus my father afore me; 

An’ how can a man go out-bye, when 
His clothes is all out at the elbows? 


Berry. 


Well, yer hat disn’t need any patchin’, 
An’ A’m sure it’s far worse nor the t’others ; 
A bought it myself in the market, 

From big Conny Collins that made it, 

For two shillins, an’ share of a naggin. 
See, the brim is tore off like brown paper, 
Till ye’re jist like a Connaughtman nager. 
An’ thin, as for darnin’ yer stockin’s, 

As well think of mendin’ a riddle. 

Why a woman’s kep throttin’ behine ye, 
Till she can’t do a turn, nor a foundet?. 


JEMMY. 


Now, just let me alone; an’ believe me, 

If ye don’t houl’ your tongue in wan minute, 
An’ git me my supper o’ sowins, 

The same as ye say’d in the mornin’, 

A’ll warm all the: wax in your ears, 

An’ we'll see which deserves to be masther. 


‘Lounge, *Anything whatever. 


- 


Jemmy and Betty. §27 


Berry. 


Och! ye mane-hearted cowardly scrapins, 

Is that the mischief!® that ye’re up to? 

Ye wud jist lift your hand to a woman, 

That ye ought to purtect and to comfort. 

See here,—ye’re a beggarly coward ; 

If ye seen your match sthript an’ fornenst ye, 
Ye wud wish to creep intil a mouse-hole. 

So ye needn’t be curlin’ yer eyebrows, 

An’ dhrawin’ yer fist like to sthrek me. 

God be thankit the tongs is beside me, 

An’ as well soon as syne, A may tell ye, 

If ye offer to stir up a rippet.", 

An’ think that ye’re imperance cows me, 

All the veins in ye’re heart ye shall rue it. 
If ye dar for till venthur to hit me, 

See, by this an’ by that, ye’ll repent it, 

A’ll soon comb yer head with the crook-rod?’. 
Or sen’ its contints shinin’ through ye. 


J EMMY. 


Well, ov all the oul’ weemin in 'Ulsther, 
A nivver seen wan so curnaptious® ; 

It’s ivver an’ always ye’re scouldin’, 

And still fin’in’ fault with a body, 

For the turnin’ o’ sthroes, or for nothin’. 
Yer tongue would clip clouts jist like sheers, 
An’ from mornin’ till duskiss it’s endless. 
A’m sure if A wus for to bate ye, 

An give ye yer fill ov a lickin’, 

It isn’t yer neighbours desarves it ; 

But A wudn’t purtend to sitch maneness, 
Nor even my wit till a wumman. 


Berry. 


It’s the best o” yer play, A can tell ye, 
An’ now that ye re comin’ to razon, 

Let me ax where ye met yer companions ? 
Ye’ve been dhrinkin’ ; ye needn’t deny it; 
Now don’t look so black at me that ’ay, 


Accented on last syllable. ''Racket. 


'2Qn which the pot hangs over the fire. '*Quarrelsome. 


528 The Irish Monthly. 


Nor sin your poor sow] wi’ more lyin’. 

Can’t ye see that ye smell like a puncheon ? 

(Oh ! the Lord in His mercy look on me, 

A dissolute, heart-brucken wumman, 

While my cross-grained ou!’ smool™* of a husban’ 
Runs spendin’ his money with blackguards). 


. JEMMY. 


Will ye nivver ha’ done aggravatin’ ? 
Why, the patience o’ Job couldn’t stan’ ye. 
It’s easy for you to be talkin’ 

Just sittin’ at home on yer hunkers, 

An’ burnin’ yer shins at the greeshaugh.” 


Berry. 


Oh! I know very weil what ye’re after ; 
Ye wor spendin’ yer money with weemen. 
Lord forgive ye, ye gray-headed sinner, 

I suppose you'll be pisonin’ me nixt. 

It’s that makes ye crooked an’ fractious, 
In the house with yer wife and yer childre. 


JEMMY. 


Will ye whisht wi’ yer capers'* an’ blethers’’ 
Before ye hev dhruv me quite crazy, 

An’ A’ll tell ye it from the beginnin’. 

Yer oul’ uncle Billy come past me 

About half-an-hour afore sun-set, 

An’ he said we might shanough™ a minute 

In Okey M‘Collisther’s shibbeen: 

It was him that stud thrate for the both of us: 
An’ good luck to the dhrap bud a * Johnnie,” 
Cross’d my corp” since ere-yestherday mornin’. 
The divil a mortyal was near us. 

He ax’d for yerself very kinely, 

An’ siz I: ‘As for Betty, poor crathur, 

She's gettin’ more donsy”! nor ever, 

An’ can’t sleep a wink for rheumaticks, 


MA sneaking, Molly Caudle of a man. “Red ashes. '*Foolish actions. “Foolish talk. 
‘Friendly gossip. 'Half-a-glass. Body, lips. “In delicate health. 








Jemmy and Betty. §29 


Forbye both the weed”? an’ the tooth-ache.” 
Poor Billy appear’d very sorry, 

An’ say’d he’d call over to see you. 

“ Och,” siz I, ‘ but I’m badly: myself, too, 
An’ still gettin’ ouldher and waker; 

A’m afeard A’ll be soon lavin’ Betty, 

Poor widdy, without a purtactor. 

But A’ll make out my will in her favour ;— 
An’ she’ll may-be live happy, in comfort, 
When A'm put to bed with a shovel.” 


Berry. 


Now, Jemmy, ye musn’t talk that ’ay; 

See, ye’ve set me a cryin’ already, 

An’ my heart’s in my mouth like a turmit.”° 
Poor fella, ye’re kine at the bottom, 

An’ A’ll nivver more taze nor tormint ye. 
Why, yer poor bits o’ breeches is wringin’ 
With the damp that comes on at this sazon. 
Sit down on that furm by the hollen’®® 

An’ [11 brisk up the fire in a jiffey ; 

An’ see, here’s half-an-ounce o’ tobacky, 
Ye can jist take a dhraw o' the dudyen,*’ 
While the tay in the pot is confusin’. 
There’s no time for a wee bit o’ slim-cake, 
So I'll just whip across to the huxter’s , 
For a bap,” that agrees with yer stomach, 
Or two penny roulls, an’ some bacon. 


724 short feverish attack. Unwell. *Buried. *Turnip. 
*A jamb to protect the fire from the wind of the open door. 27 short pipe. 
A spongy cake made by the baker, whereas slim-cake is home-made of flour and 
potatoes. 


Vou. xiv. No 304 38 


( 530 ) 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 
CuartTer XXITI. 
MR KITTLESHOT’S RESOLVE. 


There's in him stuff that puta him to these ends ; 
For, being not propp’d up by ancestry, whose grace 
Chalks successors their way; nor call’d upon 

For high feats done to the crown; . 


The force of his own “merit makes his way. 
Kine Hawny VIII. 


IA gome time past Mr. Kittleshot had been in the habit of 

taking the first train to London every Monday morning, 
returning, generally, on Tuesday, but never later than Wednesday. 
Naturally enough he had much business to transact with bankers 
and lawyers, and more than one great limited company claimed 
him as chairman or director. 

But the heart of Crossus was in the Dale. 

“TI feel like a schoolboy when I have turned my back upon 
London,” he said to the Squire one Wednesday evening. ‘‘ To 
have the bigger half of the week in front of one is delightful. 
Business is beginning to lose its charm forjme. I have already 
withdrawn from one or two enterprises that were beginning to 
take up too much of my time.” 

The Squire sighed and smiled at the same time. He was 
thinking how willingly /e would drop one or two things, if he 
could, and for the same reason. That very morning the Colonel 
had done his best to take out the jaded man for a day’s shooting; 
but alas! there was work on the writer’s desk that must be 
finished. 

é“ How’s the building getting on?” Ridingdale enquired. 

“ Capitally, thanks. I told you we got a dozen extra men last 
week—didn’t I? But I fear the public hall will not be ready 
until Christmas. How are the fiddlers progressing ? ” 

“T’m not quite satisfied with one or two of them ; but, from 
what Byrse tells me, we shall be able to do something for the 
opening—if that takes place at Christmas. Harry has got on 
well, but then he had had previous practice. And two of the 
professor’s sons are, of course, equal to anything.” 


Doings in the Dale. 531 


“* Capital!” exclaimed Kittleshot. “The two Timington lads 
are, apparently, born musicians. And I’ve a list of young men 
living in Ridingdale who have been playing one instrument or 
another since their childhood.” 

“ Bravo,” oried the Squire, ‘that’s as it should be. With a 
judicious admixture of vocal music we shall be able to give you a 
very fair concert.” 

It was an October evening, and the two men stood on the 
terrace overlooking the lawn. Shreds of exquisite colour floated 
in the western sky, like fragments torn from royal garments of 
gold and crimson. A few roses still clung to standard and briar, 
but white and purple asters in the borders caught the eye and held 
it charmed and satisfied with their restful scheme of colour. 

It was the reposeful moment between the setting of the sun 
and the fall of anautumnal twilight, and a great hush lay upon 
Ridingdale Hall. The boys were in the school-room with Dr. 
Byrse, and Mrs. Ridingdale was where she loved to be—in the 
nursery, superintending the children’s baths and hearing baby 
prayers. A robin sat on a near rose-bush, huddled close to a 
solitary white rose in full bloom—sat and sang a carol of 

October. 

The Squire had had an exceptionally heavy day, and was 
feeling the stupifying effects of close and continued application. 
But with the departure of the post-bag came longed-for leisure and 
needed rest. Came, also, Mr. Kittleshot, and his coming was 
acceptable. 

Both men turned their eyes to the western sky and remained 
silent for several minutes. The Squire was luxuriating in the 
quiet beauty of the evening, and felt disposed to give his friend 
the lead in conversation; but Mr. Kittleshot’s mind was so 
crowded with topics that he felt incapable of selecting one for 
present needs. 

But—“ It’s all very queer,’ he said at length as the two, 
mutually conscious of a rising night wind, began to pace the 
terrace, ‘it’s the queerest thing in my experience—I mean, our 
coming together. To think that my first visit to this place was 
for the purpose—well, if not of quarrelling with you, at any rate 
to engage in a hot discussion, and to put into plain language my 
disapproval of your principles.” 

The Squire laughed merrily—as he always did when * 





539 The Irish Monthly. 


Kittleshot recalled the circumstances of that January meeting. 

é Life is full of things similarly queer,”’ Ridingdale said. ‘I 
often fail to recognise myself in some utterance that I gave birth 
to in a by-gone time. A man’s opinions generally change with 
his years.” 

Mr. Kittleshot stood still and looked at the Squire keenly. 

“ In that case,” he exclaimed, “ you ought to have changed 
your religion by this time.” 

Ridingdale replied with great earnestness and warmth. 

“No, Mr. Kittleshot. Religion, if it be true, is a thing un- 
changing and unchangeable. Faith and opinion are two totally 
distinct things. The only fixed quantity in this life is—Religion.”’ 

The millionaire was silent. It was the first time the Squire 
had ever touched upon this great subject. And, at the very out- 
set, here was an idea as new to Mr. Kittleshot as the latest decree 
of the Congregation of Rites. However, controversy, especially 
religious controversy, was the last thing in the world he wished 
to engage in. His own views were curiously mixed, and although 
he now and then put in an appearance at the parish church of 
Ridingdale or Hardlow—there was only a Methodist. chapel at 
Timington—he would have shrunk from calling himself a member 
of the Church of England. For he had begun lifeas a dissenter, 
and a certain feeling of loyalty to the religious opinions of his 
father and mother kept him from a formal profession of any other 
belief. It did not appear to matter very much whether he went 
to church or meeting-house. What he had always gloried in was 
the Protestantism common to both. 

“ [ beg your pardon,” he said at length to his companion: “I 
ought not to have introduced that topic. And I’m afraid I spoke 
rather rudely. The fact is, it’s so hard to get a quiet chat with 
you, and I have so much to talk to you about that I’m anxious 
to make good use of my present opportunity.” 

é“ You would like to go indoors, perhaps? ” the Squire asked ; 
for it was not only growing chilly but there was a noise within 
that betokened the breaking up of evening schools, and in a few 
minutes the terrace would be invaded by the rebels. 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Kittleshot, “Ithink I should. I’m going 
to dine with the Colonel and he has put dinner an hour later. 
I have something to show you ”—he continued, touching the 
hreast pocket of his coat—‘‘ something that may interest you.” 





Doings in the Dale. 533 


The Squire took a last look at the evening sky. To the north 
and south the purple was pierced by tiny points of golden light. 

“A little while ago,” began Mr. Kittleshot when he found 
himself seated in the Squire’s study, “ I made two resolutions. 
One of them I shall say nothing about on the present occasion ; the 
other I want to acquaint you with at once.” 

The man of money had taken from his pocket a bulky package. 

These,” he said, beginning to unfold some crackling sheets 
of paper, “ these are plans prepared for me by a famous London 
architect—plans of an institution I am anxious to found in 
Ridingdale.” 

The Squire was eyeing the first unfolded sheet with interest. 

“I cannot say that my scheme is fully matured,” Mr. 
Kittleshot went on, “but I know more or less what it is that I 
want to do, and I think you will agree with me that my main 
idea is a sound one. From my own personal knowledge I know 
that the Dale is far more musical than we supposed, and—well, 
the long and short of it is that I want to kill, not merely two but 
many birds with one stone. Perhaps I ought to say with a pile 
of stones.” 

The Squire’s eyes were beaming, but he made no remark. He 
saw that Mr. Kittleshot was wound up for much speech. 

“I had thought of keeping the whole thing a secret—of 
springing it upon you some day as a surprise. I am glad that I 
gave up such a childish notion, for the more I go into the details 
of the scheme, the more I feel my need of your good help.” 


Ridingdale expressed his readiness to do anything he was 
capable of. 


‘These are only preliminary plans, you understand, and may 
be changed, modified, or enlarged, to any extent. NRidingdale 
wants a public hall—that we settled long ago; but I think you 
will agree with me that the town’s greatest need is either a new 
industry, or something that will bring to it the equivalent grist 
of such an industry. I have discovered that at the beginning of 
this century it was a far more important place than it is to-day. 
It is in the very centre of a very beautiful dale, and there is not 
a healthier locality in the British Islands. It stands in a county 
that has always been famous for its vocalists, and it is within a 
few miles of my own Lancashire—its only rival in musical 
knowledge and taste. Why, then, should it not have a gre 


534 The Irish Monthly. 


Oollege of music where every lad who can reach a certain 
standard may have the chance of becoming a sound musician ? ”’ 

The Squire was so bewildered by the magnitude and number 
of the plans that he scarcely knew what to say. 

‘Are you thinking of vocal or instrumental music P” he 
asked. 

é Of both,” replied Mr. Kittleshot with emphasis. ‘ Many a 
first-rate singer is lost to the world for want of a helping hand. 
Many a good organist or fiddler in embryo remains undeveloped 
for need of sufficient tuition. But I may as well say at the outset 
that I am thinking very specially of one particular class. You 
may imagine the number of appeals for help I get every day of 
my life. A certain number of these cases I investigate personally. 
and I cbnfess that the people I am inclined to help are the 
desperately poor of the middle class who have done all they can 
to help themselves, but for whom the circumstances of life have 
been too much. Of course, even cases of this kind differ in ment, 
and I frequently find that distress has come about through the 
folly of parents and thejvanity of their children. No country 
was ever so cursed with a spurious gentility as this land of ours. 
It’s not as if this social uppishness made for real culture, or even 
good manners. Many of the people I’m thinking of while hving 
in houses for which they can never pay the rent—clad in garments 
for which they oan never discharge the bills—engaging in amuse- 
ments that make only for expense and showiness—are the rudest 
and most vulgar of their kind, while their education and general 
taste (I have the best authority for saying it) is far below that of 
a young German boy in the lower grade state-schools of his 
Fatherland.” 

The Squire nodded his approval. And “this very day,” he 
said, “[ have written the same thing in other words for the 
Review.” 

“I knew you would agree,” Mr. Kittleshot went on. “It has 
tuken me some time to find it out: indeed but for you I should 
not have been able to put my finger so readily on this weakest of 
weak spots. Of course they may say—It’s all very well for a man 
in your position to preach simplicity: you can afford to do so. 
Indeed this very thing has been said to my face. My answer is: 
If you appeal to me for help, I have a right to know the reason 
why you need this help; nay more, I insist upon knowing some- 





Doings in the Dale. 535 


thing of the causes that have led to your present state of distress. 
I might say, though I never do, that I practise what [ preach— 
not, my dear Ridingdale, so fully and effectively as you; yet I 
think you will allow that, considering my means, I am neither 
luxurious nor extravagant.” 

The Squire readily agreed. One of the things that had drawn 
him closer to Mr. Kittleshot was the fact that while the latter 
was spending much money upon the improvement of Timington 
as a village, he had made no additions to the Hall, and was 
content with putting it into a thorough state of repair. A person 
like Mrs. Byrse might find life in such a house luxurious, but 
compared with his former style of living, and even with the 
present state of things at Hardlow, Mr. Kittleshot was practising 
something approaching simplicity. 

“ Your example,” Croosus continued, “ has done more for the 

Dale than you have any idea of. No—just wait a moment,” Mr. 
- Kittleshot said, as the Squire began to protest—“ let me give you 
some instances, I know exactly what you were going to say. 
You were about to urge that, being a poor man, you had lived as 
such and that there is no credit in acting under compulsion. 
Oonfess now that that argument was in your mind ! ” 

“That or something like it, certainly was,” said Ridingdale 
laughing a little at his friend’s earnestness. ‘I could not have 
acted otherwise if I had tried.” 

“Ah!” oried the other, “ that's just where the flaw of your 
argument comes in. You could not have acted otherwise, but 
many another man under precisely the same circumstances would 
have doneso. Nay, I myself know several who, if they have not 
quite such a big family as yours, have smaller means, and act as 
though they were possessed of a thousand a year at the very 
least.” 

é“ But how can they doit? I mean, how is it possible P ” 

“é It’s as easy as any other kind of sinning. They live really 
upon friends and tradespeople—particularly the latter. A large 
percentage of bankruptcies come about through the credit system. 
Men lot an account run on with one house until they are pressed 
for a settlement, then they transfer their ‘favours’ to another 
firm. Fora very short time they pay ready money, perhaps, and 
—well, how is a shopkeeper to know the exact state of the affairs 
of all his customers P They play cards and billiards sometimes, 





536 The Irish Monthly. 


and such people rarely lose. They never forget Smith who was a: 


school with them and who is doing well, or Brown whom they 
knew at Oxford and who is now a nsing man. They sell wine or 
commission, and commit themselves to shady dealings in jewels 
or horses. They discover remote relationships between themselves 
and families of an assured position, and sometimes they make 
themselves necessary to a childish old man of means, or an ancient 
wealthy lady of weak intellect.” 

“ But such a life must be intolerable!” the Squire exclaimed. 

é“ They do not find it so, unless, as sometimes happens, they 
get caught out. And always their friends and relations suffer 
far more than they. I get constant letters from such people, and 
I flatter myself that I oan detect them in double-quick time. 
They are the folk of whom I keep a long and serviceable last. 
They are the people I do not help.” 


“ Honest labour wears a lovely face.’’ 


The boys, quite unconscious of Mr. Kittleshot’s presence within, 
had for some time been indulging in little snatches of harmony; but 
they were now under the window of their father’s den and Lance 
was evidently giving an imitation of some prima donna for the 
amusement of his brothers. Running up and down the scale at 
surprising speed, and pausing now and then to give a trill of 
phenomenal length, he suddenly dropped into the melody of— 


“ Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers ?” 


Mr. Kittleshot paused to listen. 

é“ They have no idea we are within,” said the Squire, laughing ; 
“the young scamp is burlesquing the thing abominably.” 

“ He is singing true words in jest,” Mr. Kittleshot remarked 
with a smile. ‘It is a great thing to be young and innocent and 
to have small need of sermons—either in songs or stories.” 

The melody ended and was succeded by an unmistakeable 
clog-dance in which many feet were taking part. Crosus 
laughed heartily. . 

“ How Í wish I could stay longer, but,” looking at his watch, 
“it's time I started.” 

“TI told the Colonel not to expect me,” said the Squire, “ but 
he is sure to have a place laid for me, and so——”’ 

é“ Do come,” pleaded the other. “I want so much to talk to 
you about this scheme of mine. Why did you let me run off at 
such a length on a side issue ?”’ 








Doings in the Dale. 537 


$ Can you wait ten minutes while I dress ?”’ 


‘Certainly. I told them to bring round the brougham at 
half-past seven.” 


“ Swimm’st thou in wealth, O punishment ! ”' 


é Bless the lad,” exclaimed the millionaire, “ it’s just as if he 
was purposely trying to rub it in.” 

Mr. Kittleshot walked to the window and slightly raised the 
blind. A nearly full moon was now shining and its light filled the 
lawn from end to end, though the terrace itself was in shadow. 
The boys were in merry mood, laughing and chatting, and now 
and then applauding Lance or joining in the melody he was 
singing. 

But a sudden silence fell upon the little group as Mr. 
Kittleshot, having made his way to the terrace, appeared in their 
midst, Even Hilary could not, for the moment, find a word to 
say. 

It was Lance who rushed to the rescue. 

“ Please, Mr. Kittleshot, when will it be convenient for you to 
receive the —er—the Freedom of Sniggery ?” 

When the millionaire had asked for, and received, a repetition 
of this question, he began to understand its import. 

“‘Tt’s very kind of you, my lads,” he began (Lance said after- 
wards that there was a tremor in the rich man’s voice.) ‘ You are 
very good toa lonely old man, and—well, I won’t forget it. The 
day after to-morrow will suit me admirably.”’ 

“And with the Freedom of Sniggery,” said the Squire who 
had come up while the millionaire was speaking—‘“ with the 
Freedom of Sniggery you must be good enough to accept that of 
Ridingdale Hall.—But I am afraid we are keeping the Colonel 
waiting.” 








538 The Iruh Monthly. 


CuHarPTer XXIV. 


COMINGS AND GOINGS. 


“ You should account me the more virtuous that I 
have not been common in my love. I will, sir, flatter 
my sworn brother, the people, to earn a dearer estimate 


of them ; ’tis a condition they account gentle.”’ 
ContoLanus. 


The Colonel’s dinner was as memorable for its table-talk as 
for its sumptuousness. He seldom gave a formal dinner-party, 
but on this occasion Dr. Byrse was present, as well as the leading 
Ridingdale surgeon, a certain Dr. Nuttlebig—held in great 
esteem by dwellers in the Dale. 

Mr. Kittleshot unfolded his scheme in great detail, and begged 
for suggestions and emendations. The Colonel gave him both. 
and by the time the party reached the smoking-room they 
discovered that very little was left of Mr. Kittleshot’s original 
idea. It seemed inevitable that these two elderly gentlemen 
should be in opposition, close friends as they were. 

Ridingdale himself, the Doctor of Music, and the Doctor of 
medicine, were for some time amused listeners. 

In reality the Colonel was far more pleased with Mr. 
Kittleshot’s scheme than he appeared to be. He foresaw that 
Croesus was quite prepared to spend a very large sum of money 
on this college of music, and to do the old soldier justice, he was 
anxious that everything should be well-considered beforehand so 
that no portion of the generous outlay might be wasted. He 
need not have distressed himself in the matter. Mr. Kittleshot’s 
plan was a much bigger one than even the quire supposed, and the 
would-be benefactor was keeping back a good portion of it from 
his most intimate friends. Unknown to anyone, he had consulted 
experts in law, in architecture, in music, and in general 
education. 

Yet at the appointed time the millionaire went to receive the 
“Freedom of Sniggery”’ with all the gravity befitting so great 
an event. 

“ When your father assured me that the entire thing was 
spontaneous,” said Mr. Kittleshot in the course of his speech in 
~~! to the address, “I felt more pleasure than I can quite express. 








Doings in the Dale. 539 


At is easier, much easier, to have money than friends, for the 
spurious friendship that is bought by gold is not worth considering. 
“Well, dear boys, you have been good friends to me always and 
have in various ways made my life happier than it has been for 
years. There are many pretty and costly things lying about my 
rooms at Timington; few are prettier than this ’—laying his hand 
upon the carved box—“ and not one so highly valued by its 
owner.” 

The combined forces of Snuggery, Snaggery, and Sniggery 
assisted at the presentation, and when Mr. Kittleshot had retired, 
amid much cheering, to the Squire’s study, the bigger boys scam- 
pered indoors—to the amazement of the Snags who on a festive 
occasion of this sort expected to share in the general fun. 

é“ What are they going to to?” asked Connie. 

“I should like to know,” Maggie answered, looking a little 
crestfallen. ‘ Perhaps they’re going to the river.” 

“ Not till after tea,” murmured Sweetie. “ Hilary told me he 
was going fishing to-night.” 

é Not one of them has seen Aladdin’s new suit,” said Maggie 
with a sigh as she looked at her favourite sitting in all the glory 
of crimson velvet in a corner of Sniggery. “Mother and I 
worked so hard to get it ready for to-day—especially mother.” 

‘‘T had to leave Betty at home,” remarked Connie, referring 
to her own favourite doll. “TIT told her it might rain, you know; 
but really and truly ’’—lowering her voice so that Aladdin might 
not be tempted to tell tales out of Sniggery—“ really and truly, 
Maggie, I was ashamed of her frock.” 

Maggie looked a trifle soandalised. 

‘Of course, it might have rained,” pleaded Connie. ‘ You 
don’t think it was a story, do you, Maggie?” 

“ Well, it does rain—sometimes,’’ Maggie replied, looking a 
little puzzled. “ But J should have brought Aladdin—even if 
his new suit had not been finished.”’ 

Raymond and Cyril, beginning to feel bored by the conversation, 
made a rush across the lawn, determined to find out the where- 
abouts of their brothers. In a few seconds they re-appeared on 
the terrace, shouting excitedly to their sisters and pointing to the 
house. 

‘Something’s going to happen, Sweetie,” said Maggie, taking 
the child’s hand, but by no means forgetting Aladdin. 





540 The Irish Monthly. 


é“ Perhaps they re going to sing,” returned Sweetie as Connie 
took his other hand, and the three began to trot across the lawn. 

But before they reached the house, they heard the first crasi: 
of music from the Ridingdale orchestra. 

The band was anything but complete, and its repertoire was 
confined to three pieces, but Mr. Kittleshot was hugely pleased. 
He had not expected to hear it for another month at least ; but 
with the help of the Professor’s boys, the two young men from 
Timington, and a professional from Ridingdale, they had managed 
to prepare an imposing march, a selection from “‘ Mignon,”’ and a 
pizzicato, the “ Serenade des Mandolines’’ of Desormes. Each 
piece was enthusiastically encored, and the pizzicato had to be 
played three times over. 

The boys had kept their secret well. It came out later that 
they had had a daily practice in the old barn at the farm for some 
time past, and that though the bepinners, Hilary, George, Lance 
and Willie were not yet capable of much, yet they had a sufficient 
number of semi-professional helpers to form a small band, and to 
perform at any time for Mr. Kittleshot’s pleasure. 

The millionaire went home to Timington, humming tunes ali 
the way. Ashe lay back in his carriage, he thought himself the 
happiest man in the world, and when he reached his own study 
he placed the little box containing “ the Freedom ” in the place 
of honour on his mantelpiece. He stood for some time con- 
templating it and talking to himself. 

é They little know—they little know,” he said again and again. 
“They little know that they have given the old man a new lease 
of life: they little know all that they have done forme. They 
little know ”’—but here Mr. Kittleshot broke off, laughing softly 
to himself and repeating—“ They little know! ” 

The following day he went up to London by an early train, 
and remained there for a whole week. 

Mr. Kittleshot’s reappearance startled one or two persons very 
considerably. No one in Ridingdale knew that he had returned, 
when lo! on a certain Sunday morning he entered the little 
Catholic chapel and was shown into the Squire’s seat. 

“I always intended to come,” he said to Father Horbury on 
the following day. ‘It means nothing, of course, but I dare say 
the town will be in a ferment about it. But I like to show people 
that I am not bigoted. And I wanted to hear the music.” 





Doings in the Dale. 541 


Father Horbury, repressing a smile, hoped Mr. Kittleshot had 
found a comfortable seat. ‘ 

é“ Well, you are a little crowded. There’s more elbow room 
in the parish church, I must confess. I’d no idea you had so 
many people in Ridingdale.”’ 

“ About half of them live in the town,” the priest explained. 
ee The other half belong to the Dale generally. Some of them 
walk four or five miles. A few much more.” 

“ Are there any Catholics in Timington P ” 


“ Half a dozen, I think, but at Hardlow and beyond, a fair 
number.” 


é“ I understood nothing but the sermon—and the music. The 
former was very practical, and I followed every word of it. I had 
expected something very different.” 

‘Something mystical and recondite ?”’ the priest asked. He 
found it so hard not to show his amusement at Mr. Kittleshot’s 
remarks. 

é“ Yes, perhaps so. But the service puzzled me a good deal, 
The people all seemed to be doing different things at the same 
moment, and the choir appeared to be quite independent of every- 
body.” 

Father Horbury tried to explain that all were engaged in the 
one great duty of hearing Mass, but that the precise way in which 
they did it was left to the individual worshipper. 

“ But they took no part in the singing.” 

“No. The music is to give honour to Almighty God, and to 
promote the dignity and solemnity of the Holy Sacrifice. Also 
it produces, or ought to produce, a certain devotional atmosphere 
in which prayer becomes easy and delightful.” 

“ What you mentioned last I understand very well,” said Mr. 
Kittleshot, anxious to shelve the main question. ‘I never heard 
musio that appealed to me more. What a delightful thing it is 
to have a choir of such perfect voices—fresh and sweet and 
thoroughly well trained ! ” 

“That ought to be a sufficiently common circumstance in 
England,” Father Horbury answered. ‘ There is plenty of 
material, plenty of taste, and plenty of money, and these are the 
three essentials of a good choir. Of these three, money is the 
hardest to get. Everything excellent must be paid for, and it is 
by the rarest accident that a voluntary choir is excellent or ever 


549 The Iruh Monthly. 


passably good. Here of course the position of things is unique 
The Squire’s boys, helped by three lads of the town and a quas: 
professional tenor and bass, form the choir; but with a litti: 
pains and a trifling expenditure of money, every church ir 
England might possess an equally good body of singers.” 

“ Yes,” said the millionaire thoughtfully, ‘“‘ people forget the 
old principle of ‘nothing for nothing.’ I suppose,” he asked 
with interest, “ you yourself have trained these boys !” 

“I have done little enough in the matter. They began to 
sing—I am speaking of the Ridingdales, of course—almost a: 
soon as they could speak. They all begin to act as choristers at 
the age of eight. Little Sweetie will be our next addition, and I 
fancy that, as his voice developes, he will surpass even Lance. 
Mrs. Ridingdale does more than anyone else in the matter of 
training.” 

‘You have heard of my big scheme, I’m sure. I particularly 
asked the Squire to talk it over with your Reverenoce.”’ 

é“ Yes,” said the priest, “ [ heard of it with great pleasure. 
You have both the power and the will to do great good in this 
connection.”’ 

“One part of my plan I’m sure you'll like,” said Mr. 
Kittleshot as he shook hands. ‘Ina few days-I shall be able 
to give you details.” 

Davip Bgarng, 8.J. 


(To be continued). 





( 543 ) 


THE LAND OF NOD. 


H, Mother, how pleasant it used to be 
In the years that have passed away, 
When the darkness came upon weary me 
At the close of the hours of day, 
When the prayers you taught me to say were said 
To God and the saints of God, 
And, soon as the candle was gone, I sped 
To the wonderful Land of Nod. 


In that faéry land were girls and boys, 
And no older face but yours, 

And no one to frighten our laughing and noise 
Or to keep us unwilling indoors. 

No schools were there and no !essons to learn, 
And no fear of the dreadful rod ; 

But prizes we'd only to play to earn 
Were for all in the Land of Nod. 


The birds were feathered in red and in gold, 
Or at times in blue and in white ; 

They stayed the whole year, for it never was cold, 
And somehow it never was night ; 

We found the tit’s eggs wherever we spied, 
And the lark’s wherever we trod, 

And the thrush, if we whistled, would fly to our side 
In the marvellous Land of Nod. 


The flowers were every month in bloom, 
And all of them filled with scent ; 

The hills were yellow with furze and broom, 
And the hedges by which we went 

Were gaily decked with the trailing rose, 
And in meadow and field the sod 

Was covered with many a blossom that blows 
In the beautiful Land of Nod. 


No poor were there, and no sick were there, 
No scrrow or grief was known. 

We never got old in that heavenly air, 
And none of us ever had grown ; 

Our dogs were well nigh as big as we, 
Our horses in silver were shod, 

And our sailing boats were a sight to see 
On the lakes of the Land of Nod. 


544 The Irish Monthly. 


Ah, Mother, those years have faded away, 
And the gates of that land are fast, 
Nor ever again my feet shall stray . 
Where they strayed at will in the past : 
But I trust that some hour in the times unscanned, 
When they lay me down under the olod, 
I shall see your face in a lovelier land 
Than that lovely Land of Nod. 


J. W. A. 


THE CLOUD: A REVERIE... 


I: towered into the illimitable blue, a snow-crowned mountain 

of cloud, rising in pile on pile of luminous splendour. Near 
the horizon it melted away in silvery greys, while towards the 
zenith its exquisite outline of dazzling white showed, cameo-like, 
against the depths beyond, 

It filled with its glory the vista of verdurous country lane 
through which I passed ; on either side hedgerows blossomed with 
the flowers of May; at my feet was woven a carpet of tangled 
bloom ; the gleaming white of the star-like stitchwort mingled 
with the delicate blue of the speedwell, the gold of the buttercup, 
the pink of the wild geranium, and here and there a stray primrose 
or violet—lingering footsteps of Spring. 

A pair of white butterflies pursued each other in airy flight, 
pausing now and then to sip nectar from the many-coloured 
flower-cups beneath. A robin carolled on the topmost branch 
of a hollytree, which swayed to and fro in the light breeze, as 
though keeping time to his song. Swallows darted hither and 
thither on dusky wings, their white breasts flashing in the sun- 
light. A thrush and blackbird warbled a duet hard by. Above 
them, rising ever higher on quivering wings, the skylark scattered 
broadcast a shower of golden notes. 

It was a feast of colour and light, a rhapsody of sound. And, 








The Cloud: A Reterte. 545 


over all, this splendid, radiant, sun-kissed cloud leaned out of 
heaven, like a phalanx of white-winged cherubim, beneficent, 
resplendent. 

For a moment one longed for the brush of a Turner to perpe- 
toate, it might be, in some faint degree, its transcendent beauty ; 
but, lo! even as one gazed, it changed, its glory vanished, and 
the sky became a dull sea of featureless grey. 

A. chill breeze blew across the landscape and swept its sunny 
smile away, as the happy light fades from human features before 
the breath of sorrow or scorn. On the shivering foliage of thorn 
and holly pattered the first drops of the coming shower. The 
song of birds ceased, and the little flowers hung their heads 
dejectedly. The glory had departed. Shadows fell around me, 
shadows of things that were and of things to be. 

“Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the 
eyes te behold the sun; but remember the days of darkness, for 
they shall be many.” ‘‘ Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, 
all is vanity,” So, I thought, does all loveliness vanish, as this 
cloud. The transient flush of youth is gone even as we gaze. 
Beauty and joy and pleasure are but a phantasmagoria. Love 
and friendship likewise are evanescent: they dissolve, like the 
clouds, and leave us desolate, “ half sick of shadows.”’ We waste 
our affection, our delight, our appreciation on those who do not 
respond, who cannot even comprehend, who are blind, and deaf, 
and dumb to us, even as yonder labourer who wearily digs the 
soil, and never even glances at the glory of the summer clouds 
above his head. Truly, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. 

So murmurs the voice of despair. But is it indeed so? 
whispers another voice; a voice which is the lark’s song translated 
into human language, the breath of flowers, the essence of sun- 
light. It is the voice of Hope. And in swift revolt I make 
answer “No!” Though the material cloud has vanished, I see it 
still. Its image is forever impressed upon my heart. Oh, 
Heaven-born Hope, is it not imperishable? For me, at least, its 
beauty shall ever exist. Its splendour did not dawn, and wane, 
for nothing in the skies. Its full significance of joy and bope and 
beauty is immortal. For evermore the whole wide world is richer 
for the glory that illuminated it, though it was but for one brief 
moment. It is only the fungus and the darkness and the discord 
that die. The flowers and the light and the melody survive. 


gf?. ——e AT. nna an 





546 The Irish Monthly. 


é There shall never be one lost good ”—-and— 

é There evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ” 

And though I seem to squander my regard on you, my 
quondam friend ; and though you, sweetheart, value not my love, 
yet shall my own life be fuller and richer, my sympathies broader. 
and you who scorn the gift I offer, you, too, despite yourselves, 
are gainers; even as the labourer is influenced unawares by the 
notes of the thrush or the perfume of the woodbine, though he 
may not pause to listen to the song or to pluck the flower. Fur 
nothing that is good in ourselves or in Nature, can ever be “cast 
as rubbish to the void.” Out of our suffering and disappointment 
spring the divine attributes of tenderness and sympathy, and our 
pulses learn to beat with the great sorrowful heart of humanity. 

There is no oblivion for the beautiful. 


“ Ha loveliness increases, it will never 
Fade into nothingness.” 


Even as that glorious cloud has left its reflex on the world for 
ever, so the benediction of a smile, the divinity that dwells in the 
depths of kind human eyes, or the sympathetio vibration of a 
tender voice leaves round about us a perpetual aureole, though it 
may be we do not discern it. 

That rose you gave me one day, dear friend, withered soon, it 
is true, but the fragrance, which was the soul of it, passed into 
mine, and together, with the smile and the radiant glory of the 
cloud, shall never utterly fade away. 

These things are ours, and neither Death nor Time can rob us 
of them, for they are part of that universal Beauty whose source 
is God. 

Lovisa Appey. 








( 547 ) 


THE CITY OF DESIRE. 


M* heart and I on a quest go forth, 
(Wind of the sea, be still !) 

Ride east and west, and south and north, 

(Wind of the sea, be still !) 
We crave not pleasure, we need not fame, 

Nor yet to a crown aspire, 
But we seek the way which points through flame 
To the City of Desire. 


When you find the way and reach the gates, 
(Wind of the sea, be still !; 

What will you do with your loves and hates ? 
(Wind of the sea, be still!) 

Will you and your heart be more at peace 
When lovers of old enthral ? 

Will the wrinkle smooth ani the throbbing cease, 
When your foes before you fall? 


How Jittle you know, O friend! O man! 
(Wind of the sea, be still!) 
My heart and I have a better plan, 
(Wind of the sea, be still !) 
We are not riding with hand on hilt 
At lover or foe to thrust, 
But to raze the walls Desire hath built 
And bury him in their dust. 
ALicg Moraan. 


( 548 ) 


BIR JOHN T. GILBERT.* 
AN AMERICAN OBITUARY. 


MS: more brilliant men have died during the century, 

few more really useful to letters and history, than Sir 
John Thomas Gilbert, who recently passed away, at a sudden 
call, in Dublin. It is difficult, in this age of show and meretricious- 
ness in the field of literature, to appraise the merits of such a 
worker as he. For him acouracy was everything. In the search 
of historical truth he never spared an effort, no matter how 
laborious. Were it necessary to verify a statement of importance, 
arising in the course of any large work upon which he was 
presently engaged, he would travel to the libraries of Copenhagen, 
or Upsala, or Cologne, to verify it by means of MSS, which he 
knew to bethere. And in the exact placing of historical MSS. 
there was no scholar better versed. It was only necessary to 
mention the name of any authoritative historical work to him in 
order to learn where one should go to look for it. 

‘There was more, perhaps, of the archwologist than the historian 
about this painstaking scholar. If what is styled the “ historical 
temperament” signifies the steadfast resolution to get to the 
bottom of the truth in all great questions of public import, no man 
was more highly endowed than he. But if what is understood be 
the faculty of Macaulay, the power to present great and seemingly 
commonplace occurrences in glowing and impressive word-pastels, 
no writer was ever more inadequately equipped. Lis style was 
entirely destitute of the Celtic adornment ; it was terseness and 
simplicity orystallized. And the most singular feature in 
connection with the fact was that the style was by no means the 
man inthis case. The deceased gentleman was a Celt every inch 
—a man of wit and playful fancy, simple-hearted as a child, and 
fond of innocent, child-like gaiety. And it is perfectly true to 


* In adding to the tribute which our Magazine has already paid to the memory 
of this illustrious Irishman the following admirable notice from the July Number 
of The American Catholie Quarterly Review, we venture, without waiting to ask 
permission or make enquiries, to attribute it to the learned Sulpician, the Very Rev. 
J.B. Hogan, D.D., President of Boston Seminary. This, however, is merely a 
~ ~~ ise, founded on what seems to us strong internal evidence —Ep. J. .V. 





Sir John T. Gilbert. 549 


say that no man ever loved learning for learning s sake more 
Gevotedly than he. He sacrificed his private means, his time, his 
health, in pursuit of the truth of history, and in especial in so far 
as it related to the sufferings of the Catholic Church and the 
Catholic people in Ireland; for no sincerer or less ostentatious 
upholder of the faith of St. Patrick ever breathed than this gifted 
scholar. Love of religion and love of country were his great 
characteristics. The name and fame of Ireland were as dear to 
him as to the most passionate patriot. Itis well known that these 
proclivities of his were an immense obstacle in the way of his 
worldly success. 

It was only very recently that the priceless labours of this 
eminent scholar found any recognition in those quarters whose 
approval is essential to real success in all monarchical countries. 
The Queen’s jubilee at last brought the title which the historian’s 
labours had long before richly merited. He was sixty-eight years 
old when the honour came, and had earned the thanks and 
gratitude of the whole English-speaking world of letters for his 
masterly contributions to exact history. Sir John Gilbert’s 
principal published works are: “ History of the City of Dublin,” 
3 vols. 8vo., 1854-59; “History of the Viceroys of Ireland 
1172-1509,” 1865; “ Historical and Municipal Documents of 
Ireland, a.p. 1172-1320,” 8vo., 1870; “ National Manuscripts of 
Ireland,” 5 vols., large folio; “History of Affairs in Ireland, 
1641-52,” 6 parts, 1879-81 ; “ History of the Irish Confederation 
and the War in Ireland, 1641-43,” 2 vols., 1882; various Treatises 
on the History and Literature of Great Britain and Ireland, 
published by the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 
London, 1870-83 ; “ The Chartulary of the Cistercian Abbey of 
St. Mary, near Dublin,” 1883; “the Chartulary of Dunbrody 
Abbey,” 1884; “ Register of the Abbey of St. Thomas, Dublin,” 
1889 ; “ Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin,” 1890; and 
“ Documents Relating to Ireland, 1795-1804,” 1893. 

To the general reader the “ Street History of Dublin ” is the 
most interesting of all this series. It is a work almost unique. 
Not only are the various streets of the Irish metropolis treated of, 
but the individual houses of the streets, the famous personages 
who lived in them, the vicissitudes of each locality, and the 
famous events of which, in the course of centuries, they were the 
theatre. Without any pretence of style, we venture to declar 


550 The Irish Monthly. 


this remarkable civic chronicle to be as entertaining a piece of 
literature as ever was compiled. For this work he was awarded 
the Cunningham gold medal of the Royal Irish Academy in 1862. 
A work of a vastly different character was his republication of the 
ancient MSS. of the Dublin Corporation. These precious 
documents, which are contained in the muniment room of the 
Town Council, embrace many charters—the original one of Henry 
the Second, another of Elizabeth’s, one of James the Second’, 
and another of William the Third’s. They are immense sheets 
of parchment, and all splendidly illuminated. The text of the 
earlier ones is in Norman-French and medieval Latin, and that 
of the latter in obsolete English. Mr. Gilbert’s great forte was 
as a decipherer of these almost esoteric scripts. lie was versed in 
every form of abbreviation and every forgotten grammatical term 
of medisval days, and his renderings of those obsolete charters 
have proved of much substantial value to the Dublin municipality 
as well as of high interest to scholars and historians. 

It may be added that Sir John Gilbert’s “ History of the Inish 
Confederation ” has proved of immense service in the clearing up 
of the monstrous fables of the Cromwellian Chroniolers. The 
facts as tothe pretended massacre are carefully inquired into, and 
the documentary evidence adduced dispels all doubts about the 
real character of that formidable political movement. 

On the publication of all these works, we believe we are correct 
in asserting, as we have had his own assurance as to the principal 
ones, Sir John Gilbert was a heavy pecuniary loser. But he never 
got discouraged, so great was his zeal for the prosecution of the 
truth and the interests of the Church and people whom he so 
ardently loved. Besides this depressing circumstance, he 
sustained heavy losses by reason of the failure of the Munster 
Bank a few years ago, and for a time grave fears for his health 
were entertained by his friends on that account. Up to that period 
of his life he had been leading a bachelor’s life, but it was at the 
time that his fortunes appeared to be darkest that one of those 
things happened which serve to remind us of the silver lining of 
life’s clouds. It was announced that he had married the gifted 
Irish authoress, Miss Rosa Mulholland—a fact at which every one 
who knew him rejoiced. It is consoling to think that the later years 
of the patient scholar’s life were lighted by such sympathetic 
companionship, and the thousands who have been captured by the 


SA. 








Sir John 1. Gilbert. 551 


charming novelist’s work will prize her all the more highly while 
they respectfully sympathise with her in her sudden bereavement. 

Sir John Gilbert held the post of Librarian of the Royal Irish 
Academy (an honorary office) almost continuously from the year 
1864 until his death. He was born in Dublin, where his father 
was Consul for Portugal in 1829. He was educated at Dublin 
and in England. In 1867 he was appointed Secretary of the 
Public Record Office of Ireland, an office which he continued to 
hold until its abolition in J875. He edited “ Fac-similes of 
National Manuscripts ofj lreland,” by command of the Queen. 
lle was a Governor of the National Gallery of Ireland, a Trustee, 
on behalf of the Crown, of the National Library of Ireland, 
Inspector of MSS. in Ireland for the Royal Commission on 
Historical MSS., Librarian and Member of the Council of the 
Royal Irish Academy, Dublin; Fellow of the Society of 
Antiquaries of London, Trustee of the National Library of 
Ireland, Hon. Professor of Archeology in the Royal Academy of 
Arts, Dublin; editor of a series of publications entitled, 
é Historic Literature of Ireland,’ and also editor in the collection 
of “ Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland.” He 
received the Gold Medal of the Royal Irish Academy, and was 
thanked by the Corporation of Dublin for his antiquarian labours. 
He gave an impetus to Celtic studies by effecting the publication 
of some of the most important manuscripts in the Irish language, 
now lying on the shelves of the Royal Irish Academy, and 
forming a collection probably unequalled of its kind. This is a 
fact which ought to have more recognition among Celtic scholars 
than it has hitherto been accorded. But indeed he was a man 
who sought very little of the world’s recognition in anything to 
which he bent his unselfish mind. He sought for higher things 
than this world can give, and we sincerely pray that he has now 
found them. 








( 552 ) 


CLAVIS ACROSTICA. 
A Kry to “ Dusrin Acrostics.” 
No. 38. 


“Ó,” that is, the late Judge O'Hagan, is the author of the 
following very clever bit of playful verse :— 


Thus he said, but said it sotto 
"oce (for he feared mamma), 
“ I have taken for my motto, 
Glissez mais n’appuyez pas,” 
Pleasant transitory fancies, 
Pic-nic, Croquet, Boat and Ball, 
Interchange of hands a:d glances, 
Lips, perhaps—but that is all. 
So his heart against the charmer 
Deemed itself securely stecled, 
Such resolves are feeble armour 
When our fate is in the field. 
Necd I tell you how it ended f 
How the fish was brought aground ; 
*T was my first that he intended, 
*T was my second that he found. 


1. Shriek! I didn't; no one heard it, 
Though a rhyming Scot averred it. 
2. Home from carnage on the water 
For a little private slaughter. 
3. I’ve forgotten Wordsworth’s poem, 
"Tig from Walter Scott I know him. 
4. I suspect that Hebrews covet, 
And I know that Christians love it. 
5. Water in a trifling hurry, 
Foam and Iris—Byron—Murray, 
6, If he left her fur another, 
Pray docs that make me her mother” 
7. Not a hunter nor a racer, 
What I want's a steady pacer. 
8. On a two-fold board I flourish, 
Now I smooth, and now I nourish. 





0. 


Two words of eight letters each ; evidently what was meant at 
first to be a mere bit of platonic flirting ended at last in marriage. 
The first of eight “lights” begins of course with ” and ends with 





Clavis Acrostica. 553 


sn. The brilliant Acrostician chose the word Ficedom and thought 
of the couplet in Thomas Campbell’s Pleasures of Hope :— 


Hope for a season bade the world farewell, 
And Freedom shricked as Kosciusko fell. 


These lines were familiar as the commonest proverb to a school- 
boy of taste in my young days; but I fear that the contemporary 
schoolboy has very little poetry of any kind off by heart. 
Campbell is not one of the supreme poets of the century, but some 
of his pieces are very good for storing up in a boy’s memory to 
rhyme over in vacant moments as a substitute for whistling or 
worse. The second light is an allusion to another poem less 
familiar now than then—Lord Byron’s Lara. Another literary 
allusion is to ‘“ Ivor’’—familiar to the readers of Sir Walter 
Scott who was then read by everybody. The fourth light is less 
refined—a “rasher’”’ and then Terni and Ida (an allusion to 
Oenone and Tennyson’s “ Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die ’’). 
Finally nag, and goose, both the tailor’s and the cook’s. 


A WRITER OF FIOTION. 


Lok: I have made my heart a market-place 
Of venal thought to lure the crowd’s desire ; 

Yea, I have laughed and wept therein for hire, 

For pence have joyed and sorrowed—O disgrace ! 


Compassionate, of old with angered face, 
With knotted lash, and word of blazing ire, 
Thou dravest trafficker and foolish buyer 
From forth Thy Temple’s consecrated space. 


Take now in hand a scourge of triple cord— 
Of Wisdom, Truth, and Reverence entwined ; 
Drive the intruders from my heart, O Lord! 


Unto its noisy vestibule, the mind ; 
There while they strut an hour for brief reward, 
Stay Thou within my inmost heart enshrined ! 


Joun Hannon, 


t dot ) 


PIGEONHOLE PARAGRAPHS. 
LX. 


The contributor of many an ingenious and erudite page to past 
volumes of this Magazine—the Rev. T. E. Bridgett, C.SS.k.— 
has been so kind as tosend us the following comment‘on a remars 
which occurs in our notice of Mr. Henry P. Russell’s Cyr? 
Westward in our September Number. How characteristic is 
Cardinal Manning’s inability to appreciate Newman’s “ Loss and 
Gain.” Father Bridgett threw his observations int» the form of 
a letter to the Editor. 

e * e 

At p. 506 of your September Number, after mentioning Father 
Newman’s “ Loss and Gain,” you remark :—‘‘ By th way, is it 
not strange that this grand and austere genius should throw his 
thoughts and feelings into this peculiar form, at so solemn a crisis 
of his history ?’”’ I think I can throw some light on this matter. 
Newman was received into the Church in October, 1845. His 
Essay on Development immediately appeared. Men wondered 
what he would do os a Catholic, and were not a little surprised 
that his first English work, the prefuce of which is dated February 
1848, should be a work of fiction, parts of which are in a light or 
sarcastic vein. What a falling off, thoy said. Is this the writer 
of the Parcchial Sermons? And they were scandalised. I was once 
present at a conversation between Provost Manning, afterwards 
Cardinal, and Father Coffin, afterwards Bishop of Southwark. 
Father Coffin mentioned the delight with which he was accustomed 
to read over and over again “ J.oss and Gain.” Father Manning 
replied that he had only once read it, and had been pained by it, 
and never could understand how Newman could have condescended 
to such a work. Father Coffin then said that Father Newman 
had undertaken it as a work of charity. When Mr. James Burns, 
who had a nice business as a publisher of tractarian books, became 
a Catholic, he lost his Anglican connection, and had of course 
much difficulty in starting as a Catholic publisher, Father 
Newman wrote “Loss end Gain” to give him a start; not so 
much by the profits of the book itself, as by the advertisement 

Ah. 











Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 556 


of his publishing house, for it was an open secret that the book 
was by Newman, though his name was not on the titlepage. 
Father Coffin had every means of knowing the facts, since he was 
living with Father Newman in Rome, while the book was being 
written. [ remember that this explanation changed Manning’s 
opinion, which was a mere survival of Protestant prejudice. I do 
not know whether the circumstances of Mr. Burns had anything 
to do with the choice of the title. It was as applicable to him as 
to the hero, Charles Redding, or to other converts. 

In return for this anecdote, can anyone explain why Newman 
called his famous poem ‘ The Dream of Gerontius.” Why was 
the dying man called Gerontius ? Is Gerontius supposed to have 
died and been judged only in adream? Or is it meant that the 
picture of Gerontius before and after death is Newman’s dream of 
what must happen to a soul P ” 


* + * 


The Edinburgh Review, July 1870, in its criticism of Lord 
Beaconsfield’s Lothair, speaks of the Catholic Church as “that 
great sacred Polity of which the fervid Puritan, Edward Irving, 
has written as ‘the temple builded together by Satan out of the 
very materials of God and over which my mind wandered with 
great admiration ’—which the free-thinking Lord Shaftesbury 
has described as ‘that ancient Hierarchy which in respect of its 
first foundation, its policy, and the consistency of its whole frame 
and constitution cannot but appear in some respects august and 
venerable even in such as we do nut usually esteem weak eyes’ — 
that Church to whose dominion over the minds of men Lord 
Macaulay saw no end in any progress of human intelligence.” 

And Anthony Trollope in his North America (vol. I. page 75) 
says of Roman Catholics :— 

“ And yet I love their religion. There is something beautiful 
and almost divine in the faith and obedience of a true son of the 
Holy Mother. I sometimes fancy that I would fuin be a Roman 
Catholic—if I could; asalsoI would often wish tu be still a child— 
if that were possible.” 

Precisely (rejoins Mr. Trollope’s Dublin Reviewer, I think in 
October 1872). Our Divine Lord has said : ‘ Unless you become 
as little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven.,’”’ 


á & * 


556 The Irish Monthly. 


It has been said that a gentleman meets with very few rude 
persons. Rudeness provokes rudeness, and true gentleness calls 
forth in others qualities resembling itself. The following example 
has a suspicious look of self-praise, but it was only intended to set 
down another and not to set up myself: I once told a lady of a 
somewhat morbid and unhappy temperament that she could 
contrive to meet a greater number of undesirable people in a 
fortnight than I would encounter in forty years—I who had in 
fact passed half a century on earth (let us stop at that for euphony’s 
sake) without coming across many much worse than myself. 


® * & 


One might expect to see the following sonnet in The Francts- 
can Annals or some such religious periodical rather than in 7he 
Atheneum where it appeared about the time of the Feast of 
Portiuncula, 1§98, with the signature “ Blanche Lindsay.” 
Probably Lady Lindsay’s name helped to secure its admission 
into the pages of that dignified and very secular organ of criticism. 


O little houso within a house of prayer— | 
‘Thyself a sanctuary! We softly tread 

Thy time-worn floor; we stand with bended head 

Before thy walls where every stone’s more rare 

Than precious gems, for living pilgrims there 

Have planed it smooth with kisses. Lies he dead, 

Or lives he yet, Assisi’s Saint who led 

Christ’s barefoot band the Master's toil to share ” 


Here oft spake Francis, and his voice yet rings 
That called the swallows “ little sisters dear.”’ 
Hard by, his cell with memories teems, and near | 
Is the grey cave that saw him weep and pray. 
Where his soul wrestled, to the rose bush clings 
A stain of blood, as though of yesterday. 

we * * 

In this Magazine, in two places,* will be found a collection of 
the tributes that many poets have paid to Sleep. A nameless old 
newspaper scrap in the following pigeonhole refers to two of the 
best known panegyrics of sleep, and joins two or three much less 
familiar testimonies. 

bá 2 2 

Of all invocations of sleep, the most famous is probably that of 

the wakeful usurper in “ Henry IV.” 


* Vol 25, page 455, and Vul. 26, page 231. 
ARE. 


Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 557 


© sleep, O gentle sleep, 
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee + 


No poet, however, has observed the phenomena of a coy and 
hesitating sleep more closely than the old French writer, Pontus 
de Tyard. He appeals to sleep as the lord of all the army of 
phantasms that flit before the drowsy, but not yet unconscious 
brain, and appear to be dreams in the making. 


Come, Sleep, and cast thy wings about my head, 
And thine own temples shall be garlanded 
With drowsy poppy leaves and labdanum. 


The most pathetic lines on sleep are those of Scarron’s self- 
made epitaph. The sick jester was sleepless for many nights 
before his death, and looked impatiently, as he says in the lines 
which we quote in an English version, for his dreamless repose : 


Wayfarer, be thy footsteps light, 
I pray you that ye make no sound ; 
Here, this first night of many a night, 
Poor Scarron sleeps—in holy ground. 


In contrast with these stanzas, the Ancient Mariner’s blessing 
on sleep seems to exhaust the subject : 


Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing, 
Beloved from pole to pole ! 
To Mary Queen the praise be given! 
She sent the blessed sleep from Heaven 
That slid into my soul. 


There is something of the disconnected coherence of the visions 
of the night in Beddoe’s “ Dream Pedlary,” which reads like a 
memory of a poem heard in sleep : 


If there were dreams to sell, 
What would you buy? 
Some cost a passing bell ; 
Some a light sigh, 
That shakes from Life’s fresh crown 
Only a rose leaf down. 
If there were dreams to sell, 
Merry and sad to tell, 
And the cries rany the bell, 
What would you buy ? 


But a sleepier and more soothing song than this is Sidney 





558 The Irish Monthly, 


Dobell’s chief success in verse, a passage of drowsy and 
monotonous music that rings 
On the margin grey 
’Twixt the soul’s night and day, 
Sinking away, away 
Into sleep. 
2 e + 
A sharp contrast is supposed to exist between rhyme and 
reason, which are often pitted against one another. But rhyme 
is not without its use in Lringing out our reasons more emphatically. 
For instance, the two bits of nonsense which follow. The first of 
them occurs in Edward Lear’s “ Book of Nonsense.” 
There was an Old Man in a tree 
Who was terribly bored by a bee. 
When they said ‘‘ Does it buzz ?”’ 
He replied, ‘‘ Yes, it does ! 
“ It'a a regular brute of a bee.” 
Not much reason but good enough rhyme. But there is 
neither rhyme nor reason in Mr. W. 8. Gilbert’s ‘‘ Nonsense 
Rhyme in Blank Verse: ”’ 


There was an Old Man of St. Bees 
Who was stung in the arm by a wasp. 
When they asked, “: Does it hurt f’’ 
He replied, “ No it doesn’t, 
“ But I thought all the while ’twas a hornet.”’ 


Very blank verse certainly. 
. Lá Lá 

I put aside some years ago, for the purpose to which I am now 
applying it, a fragment of the prospectus of St. Bede’s College, 
Manchester. One division of the prospectusis headed ‘‘ Formation 
of business habits.” We omit the first and last paragraphs, and 
venture to guess that these wise counsels are given by the learned 
President of the College, the Rev. Dr. Casartelli. 


* * * 


It has been said that ‘the path of success in business is 
invariably the path of common sense;’’ and that “ men succeed 
in life as much by their temper as their talents.” Now the 
Gospel as well as common sense teaches that self-control, work, 
determination, perseverance and cheerfulness are among the 
ordinary moral conditions of success. 





Pigeonhole Paragraphs. 559 


It is evident that if 4 youth, entering business in these days 
of severe competition, desires to outstrip his competitors, he must 
have acquired, besides various branches of knowledge and skill, 
business habits. Among such habits two or three may be 
enumerated. : 

He must have acquired the habit of Punctuality, so as to be 
thoroughly reliable not only in his appointments but also in the 
husbanding and use of his own and his master’s time. 

He must have formed habits of Eractness, that is of method, 
of precision and tidiness in his work, in his manner, and in his 
person. xactness again implies thrift and economy, without 
which it is impossible to become a provident and careful man of 
business, or out of the common opportunities which fall in the 
way of most men, to provide for the household and to establish an 
honourable independence. 

Closely allied to the habits of punctuality and exactness is the 
habit of Diligence. If the objects set before a youth in taking to 
a life of business be such as these—speedily to secure for himself 
a competency, to make an ample provision for his family, to rise 
several steps upon the social ladder, to serve his country, to gather 
together considerable resources whereby he may be enabled to 
perform great works of mercy and charity, to the honour of God 
and the salvation of souls—if such as these be the objects in view, 
it cannot be too steadily borne in mind that common sense and 
Religion point to Diligence as a necessary qualification for success. 
Our homely English proverbs say—‘ Diligence is the mother of 
good luck ; ” “ No pains, no gains;”’ “ No sweat, no sweet.” And 
the scripture impresses on us the same truth in these plain and 
simple words—“ If he will not work, neither shall he eat.” (II. 
Thess. iii. 10.) 

% % 

Vacant moments ! How can there be such a thing as a vacant 
moment for a Christian—for a man with faith anda heart? Is 
not God to be loved at every moment? And to say with a true 
heart, “ My God, I love Thee,” is good occupation for any moment. 
A Christian soul ought to find its comfort in prayer; it is far 
pleasanter than frivolous wandering thoughts. God help the 
people that find time hanging heavy on their hands. ‘“ Pastime” 
is a foolish word, and “killing time” is a foolish phrase. The 
Ohurch, in the Mass of St, Stanislaus Kostka, 8.J., bids us copy 


560 The Trish Monthly. 


that seraphic young Saint by redeeming our time, working 
earnestly, and so hastening to enter into our everlasting rest. 
Work while it is day: we have eternity to rest in. But the rest 
of eternity will not be oblivion or torpor, but a blessed and bhas- 
ful activity, of which in our mortal state we can only have dim 


conceptions. We can trust in God. Voca me cum benedictis. 
* -. * 


St. John Chrysostom, Mother Mary Catherine Macaulay, and 
Thomas Hood would not seem likely names to figure together in 
the same pigeonhole paragraph. The connecting link between 
these three names is nothing less than the Precious Leg of Mies 
KKilmanseg. In one of the pensive passages with which the 
pathetic humourist who sang the “ Song of the Shirt ” relieves the 
drollery of that incomparable burlesque, these lines occur :— 

“ And oh! when the blessed diurnal light 
Is quenched by the providential night, 
To render our slumbers more certain — 
Pity, pity, the wretches who weep, 
For they must be wretched who cannot sleep 
When God himself draws the curtain.”’ 

Poor Hood beyond all doubt never read St. John Chrysostom’s 
treatise on Compunction, yet here he keeps very close to the 
very words of the following passage towards the beginning of the 
second book in which the same idea occurs :— 

‘‘When mothers wish to put their little ones to sleep, they 
take and rock them gently in their arms, then hide them away 
under curtain and leave them quiet. So Providence spreads 
darkness as an immense curtain over the world to hush nature to 
silence and invite men to rest from their labours.” 

It is highly improbable, as I might show from an examination 
of dates and circumstances, that Mother Mary Catherine Macaulay, 
Foundress of the Sisters cf Mercy, ever saw either in Hood or 
Chrysostom this idea which she herself in turn uses as an illustra- 
tion when recommending to her nuns a certain graceful quietness 
of tone and manner. ‘‘ See (she says) how silently and brilliantly 
the lamp of the sanctuary burns before the most Iloly Sacrament 
when the oil is pure and good: it is only when the oil is bad, that 
it crackles and makes a noise. See, too, how quietly the great 
God does all His mighty works. Darkness is spread over us, and 
light returns again, and there is no noise of drawing curtains or 
closing shutters.” 





(561 ) 


NOTE ON PAGE 523. 


Additional Sonnets on the Sonnet. 


I” the account that we have elsewhere given of the criticisms 

passed on that somewhat notorious book, ‘ Sonnets on the 
Sonnet,” we supplied, under the name of “ Aftermath,” certain 
samples of that peculiar species of composition which had reached 
us too late to be included in the volume. Even this supplement 
did not exhaust all our resources ; and we think it well to return 
to the subject in this same Number, so as to have done with it for 
ever. For instance, among the sonnets which were expressly 
inspired by our volume, we did not appropriate from “ The 
Stonyhurst Magazine ”“ this sonnet on “ Shakespeare’s Sonnets ” 
which H. G. M. says he composed “ After reading ‘Sonnets on 
the Sonnet’ by the Rev. M. Russell, 8.J.” I give with some 
misgiving the Stonyhurst punctuation of the tercets, 


Are Shakespeare's ‘‘ sonnets ’’ sonnets? Who shall say P 
While some deny, some white with heat affirm. 
*Twixt him and Petrarch here behold the germ 

Of deep dispute, protracted many a day. 

The answer might be had without delay— 

As quickly as to ' Is this snake a worm?’’ 
Would they define the essence of the term,; 
But such, alas, is not a poet’s way. 


“ Three quatrains, six alternate rhymes in pairs, 

With epigrammic couplet to conclude.”’ 

“Two quatrains, teroets two, and rhymes but four.” 

As either form with views accepted squares, 

Cease, shades of Petrarch, Shakespeare, cease your feud! 
The essence is just ‘‘ Fourteen Lines ’’—no more. 


Miss Charlotte Grace O’Brien, who was well represented in our 
volume, offered the following as an an epilogue or L’Envoi :— 





* In the book under the notice a dainty triolet is attributed to this Magazine, 
because we did not then know that its author was the Rev. J. W. Atkinson, S.J. 
From this Magazine also we took in our August paper ‘‘ All about the Robin ”’ 


some graceful and tender verses which we are now glad to assign to the Rev. 
Alban Goodier, S.J. 


Vor. xxwr. Nn aha an 





562 The Irish Monthly. 


Well, we have seen of divers men the thought, 
Of women too, anent the Sonnet’s laws 
And of its grace and power the subtle cause, 
How it was born, how to perfection Lrought. 
Now I behold a silent glen unsought, 
A rock-bound pool, that from earth’s centre draws 
Its ever-springing freshness without pause, 
All things around to one swect picture wrought. 


Even so the Sonnet: see it where it springa, 

Strong with the paesionate pulse of Shakespeare’s heart, 
And garlanded with all the loveliest things. 
Even so the Sonnet : Milton swceps the strings, 

Draws heaven’s light down through his own Heaven-born art 
O’er the dark waters touched by angels’ wings. 


Mr. Edward Robeson Taylor dates the following address to the 
Sonnet from San Francisco, August 4th, 1898. 


Bound in the fetters of thy narrow frame, 
What souls have conquered song! Here Dante's woe, 
As Petrarch’s, swells to joy ; here Angelo 
Heightens the glory of his mighty name. 
’Tis here that Shakespeare bears his breast to blame, 
And Milton here his solemn strains doth blow ; 
Here Wordsworth's notes with rapturous music blow ; 
While Keats divinely glows with quenchless flame. 
Yea, all the rhymesters of our petty day 
Crowd round thy shrine and beg thee to enring 
Their brows with leaves of thy immortal bay. 
Such crown is not for me, but prithee fling 
Thy spell upon me so at least I may 
Yet dream of beauties I can never sing. 


A certain dignitary, whose name would add interest and value 
to his playful work, condescended to return in kind the hommage 
de Pauteur, the votive copy laid reverently at his feet. Mooking 
genially an arrangement which occurs frequently in the book, 
he set down first the “ Original’’ of his “First Type-written 
Sonnet,” paying sundry dainty compliments to 


‘¢ Those wondrous rhymes 
That fall like harmony from village chimes 
O’er flowery fields and violet-scented banks.”’ 


But next came “The Same Translated,” in which the con- 


pliments were turned awry in very mordant fashion which does 
not lend itself to quotation. 


sii. 











Notes on New Books. 563 


Some of the reviewers of “Sonnets on the Sonnet” have 
committed a fault not very common among their craft: they have 
taken the collection quite too seriously and judged it by too lofty 
a standard and yet very kindly. Confining our choice to sonnets 
with such a peculiar limitation of subject, at first it seemed 
necessary not to be very squeamish about literary merit; and it 
has realiy been a surprise to those most familiar with the subject 
to discover such a number of these egotistic sonnets, examples of 
the Sonnet de Seipso, very many of them displaying great technical 
skill and (within such narrow bounds of form and theme) great 
variety of thought and fancy. ‘I'he collection, which has in divers 
ways obtruded itself too often on the readers of this Magazine and 
must now be digmissed finally with a parting blessing, is at all 
events a perfeotly unique compliment to the Sonnet. Nothing of 
the sort has ever before been attempted in any language, or 
probably ever will be. 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


1. We are glad to sve that the Benzigers are not to have a 
monopoly of the publication of Catholic books in America. A firm of 
Catholic publishers whose name we have never noticed before— 
Marlier, Callanan & Co., 172 Tramont Street, Boston—announce an 
important work by the Very Rev. John B. Hogan, the learned 
Sulpician, President of Boston Ecclesiastical Seminary. The remark 
however that we have begun with was suggested by the arrival of a 
parcel of six new books issued by Mr. B. Herder of Freiburg, Vienna, 
Munich and Strassburg in the Old World; and in the New World, 
St. Louis, Missouri. Every one of the half dozen has a special worth 
and interest of itsown, and has evidently not been printed merely 
because the writer was rich enough to pay the printer. We shall put 
firat the latest of Mr. Maurice Francis Egan’s books which are now 
so numerous as to form a dainty little library by themselves. The 
Professor of English Literature in the Catholic University of 
Washington seems to have beensojourning in Normandy, and it is there 
that he has laid the scene of his thirteen ‘‘Sketches of French and 
American Life” which he calls ‘‘ From the Land of St. Laurence.” 
The doings ani sayings uf Mr, George Morse and other Americans, 


564 The Inssh Monthly. 


during their intercourse with their French friends, have a quaint 
effect ; and some of the little stories are very interesting. Several of 
the Americans are all the better for having Irish connections—like 
Mr. Egan himself. 


2. Another of Mr. Herder’s publications is ‘‘ A Guide for Girls in 
the Journey of life.” We are puzzled by the statement on the title 
page From the German of F. X. Welzel; for the little book reads 
oxtremely unlikea translation. The first chapter begins with a 
quotation from an old poet who would hardly be familiar to a German, 
and it contains allusions to Lady Georgiana Fullerton, the poor women 
of Dunfermline, etc., which must be interpolations by the tranalator 
if the book be a translation. All this implies that the book is written 
in a natural and pleasant style. It gives excellent advice about a 
great many useful subjects and would be a good present for a girl. 


3. A much more important work of a somewhat similar nature is 
“ Girlhood’s Handbook of Woman,” issued by the same publishers. 
It gives the views on the work, sphere, influence, and responsibilities 
of women, held by Miss Starr, Miss Donnelly, Miss Onahan, Miss 
Sadlier, Miss Katherine Conway, Mrs. Hawthorne Lathrop, Miss Helen 
Smith, and four other ladies whose social title we are unable to define, 
besides F. M. Edgelas, which we believe is an anagram of the 
religious name Mary de Sales. The whole has been revised and 
edited by Miss Eleanor C. Donnelly, who herself contributes two 
excellent papers, ‘‘ Woman in Literature ” and “ Wife and Mother.” 
Miss Eliza Allen Starr takes the subject of “ Woman in Art,” on 
which she can speak with authority. Our conjecture about F. M, 
Edselas would be confirmed by her subject, ‘‘ Women in the Religious 
Orders,” but to her signature is appended in full “Sister M. F. 
de Sales Chase.” In the opening essay Miss Donnelly fills a page 
with interesting names. ‘‘ While England points with pride to her 
Adelaide Proctor, Lady G. Fullerton, Lady Herbert, Mary Howitt, 
Alice Meynell, Emily Bowles, and Mother Theodosia Drane; Ireland, 
to her Rosa Mulholland, Julia Kavanagh, Kathleen O'Meara, Cecilia 
Caddell, Ellen Downing, Katharine Tynan, and Mrs. Cashel Hoey ; 
France, to Eugénie de Guerin and Mrs. Craven ; Germany, to Countess 
Hahn-Hahn ; Spain, to Cecilia Bohl de Faber; and Italy, to Maria 
Brunamonti,— America enshrines in her heart of hearts, the names of 
Anna Hanson Dorsey, Eliza Allen Starr, Margaret Sullivan, Christian 
Reid, Louise Guiney, Katherine Conway, Madeline Vinton Dahlgren, 
Sara Trainer Smith, Agnes Repplier, Mary Elizabeth Blake, Harviet 
Skidmore, Ella Dorsey, the gifted Sadliers, (mother and daughter), 
Mary Josephine Onahan, Helen Grace Smith, the cloistered singers, 

reedes and Mother Austin Carroll, Jane Campbell, Miss Cronyn and 








Notes on New Books. 565 


a host of others who blend their sweet voices in the grand cantata of 
Columbian Catholic literature.” Any other writer would have 
included the name of Eleanor Donnelly. 


4. The fourth of these new books is a new translation of the 
Father Quadrupani’s ‘‘ Instructions for Devout Souls to dispel their 
doubts and allay their fearg.” The shorter title “ Light and Peace” 
ig here adopted for convenience sake. This well known treatise is 
just one hundred years old; and in the original Italian, it had gone 
through thirty-two editions before 1818. Mr. Herder has produced 
it in a very readable form, in which it is sure of a very wide 
circulation. 


5. To the same publisher we owe avery neat and pleasant book 
by L. W. Reilly, “ What the fight was about and Other Stories.” 
The author describes it on the title page as ‘‘a book about real live 
American boys that was written for other bright boys of the same 
kind.” The stories are very bright and wholesome; seven of the ten 
appeared first in Zhe Ave Marta—from which fact the judicious reader 
will draw certain conclusions. 

6. The last of Mr. Herder’s new books is “ Beyond the Grave,” 
translated by Miss Anna Sadlier, from the French of Father E. 
Hamon, 8.J. The name of the author isa sufficient guarantee for 
the excellence of the work; and Miss Sadlier’s name is a guarantee 
for the excellence of the translation. Thirty-three short chapters 
discuss a very great number of questions about the Resurrection and 
Heaven, and the state of the Blessed. There is a great deal of 
freshness and originality, and, at the same time, of solidity, in this 
new spiritual book. 

7. The Rev. Michael Watson, S.J., has compiled a very interesting 
memorial of ‘'The Consecration of St. FPatrick’s Cathedral, 
Melbourne.” The beautiful introduction by Dr. Gallagher, Coadjutor 
Bishop of Goulburn; the editor's historical sketch, and account of the 
consecration, and then the accurate reports of the sermons of Cardinal 
Moran, of Dr. Redwood, Archbishop of Wellington, New Zealand, of 
Dr. Higgins, Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, of Dr. Dwyer, Coadjutor 
Bishop af Maitland (the first Australian-born Bishop), and of Father 
O'Farrell, C.SS. RB. : these items make a very solid piece of ecclesiastical 
literature, while the book is made almost a work of art by the 
admirable pictures of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, of its High Altar and 
Sanctuary, aodits Archbishop, Dr. Uarr. There are other illustrations 
also, one grouping together some forty of the Bishops and Clergy, 
each portrait evidently life-like, and another very impressive picture 
of the scene presented in the Sanctuary of the Cathedral at Solemn 
Vespers of All Saints’ Day, 1897, during the Triduum of the Conse- 


580 The Irish Monthly. 


cration. This thiu octavo seems to us-the most effective memorial of 
the kind that we have met, though we have met several much more 
costly and more pretentious. We may tack on to this notice of an 
Australian book a cordial tribute to the merit of an Australian 
magazine. The Austral Light is fulfilling its mission well. 
The August Number seems to us to reach a high level: fiction, poetry, 
criticism, theolopy, and local politics (if the politics of a continent can 
be called merely local) are competently represented in these brightly 
written and finely printed pages. 

8. Meditations on Christian Dogma. By the Rev. James Bellord. 
(London: Catholic Truth Society). 

These two volumes, particularly well printed and well bound, of 
meditations on the doctrines of Christianity, are founded upon “ La 
Théologie Affective” of Louis Bail: but very large omissions have 
been necessary to reduce the work toa third of its bulk. Father 
Bellord also in his introduction acknowledges his obligation for certain 
passages not only to such writers as Auguste Nicolas and Lacordaire, 
but even to such rank outsiders as Max Nordau, Benjamin Kidd, and 
Herbert Spencer. These citations have no doubt been very slight and 
ought hardly to have been mentioned. Many will find these volumes 
a useful change from the ordinary books of meditation. A glance at 
Cardinal Vaughan’s brief but earnest letter of recommendation, and 
then a glance at the well-arranged table of contents will probably 
lead the reader to add this work to his asceticlibrary. Of the sixteen 
treatises, each of which (except two or three short ones) contains from 
twenty to fifty meditations, the following are the general subjects: 
God, the Blessed Trinity, Creation, the Angels, the World and Man, 
the Incarnation, the Blessed Virgin, Beatitude, Human Acts, Lawes, 
Grace, Virtue in general, the Theologica! Virtues, the Cardinal Virtues, 
the State of Perfection, the Sacraments, and the last things— Death, 
Judgment, Hell, Heaven, Eternity. 

9. Kathleen’s Motto. By 8S. D. B. (Barnet: St. Andrew's Press): 

This is a rather long story of twenty-one chapters and two hundred 
and thirty pages. Wemention this as a recommendation, for there 
cannot be a real, interesting plot, or asubtle evolution of character in 
one of your single-chapter stories. There is a real plot in the present 
case cleverly developed. The literary merit of the story and its high 
tone may be guessed from the circumstance (which we reveal as a 
guarantee of its worth) that the author was an accomplice of her 
illustrious Mother Superior, the late Augusta Theodosia Drane, in 
some of her literary enterprises. 

10. Madge Hardlaun’s Money. By Mary Oross. (Barnet: St 

adrew’s Press). 





Notes on New Books. 567 


Mrs. Cross is a practised story-teller, and her new story is readable ; 
but the incidents are decidedly common-place. Sidney Sefton is a 
very conventional scapegrace, and his conversion is startlingly rapid 
and complete: but these things might be said also of many of the 
novels most in vogue. Although, however, we are accustomed to more 
originality and freshness in the books issued under Father Bampfield’s 
auspices, ‘‘ Madge Hardlaun’s Money” isa wholesome and edifying 
tale, and many will find the plot interesting and even mildly exciting. 


11. A new and enlarged edition of ‘‘ The Science of Spiritual Life 
according to the Spiritual Exercises’? by Father James Clare, S.J., 
has been issued by the Art and Book Company of London and 
Leamington. It gives the fullest and most systematic treatment that 
can perhaps be found in English of St. Jgnatius’s epoch-making little 
book. Besides an unusual variety of meditations worked out from 
the text of the Hzercitia Spiritualia, there are three appendixes of 
Considerations, first, for Christians in general, secondly, for Priests, 
and thirdly for Religious. The additional matter makes it now a 
portly volume of nearly seven hundred pages. Considering the public 
to whom it is addressed, two years is a short enough period for such 
a book to reach a second edition; and six shillings is not too high a 
price for seven hundred such pages. 


12, We think it our duty from time to time to express our 
admiration for the largest and most important of our faithful 
exchanges, Zho Amertcan Catholic Quarterly Review, whichis published 
at Philadelphia under the direction of the Archbishop, the Most Rev. 
Patrick John Ryan, D.D., with the Rev. J. F. Loughlin, D.D., and 
Mr. John J. O’Shea as associate editors. It has maintained its high 
standard of merit for more thae twenty years, and the most learned 
Catholic writers on both sides of the Atlantic contribute articles which, 
happily, are always signed. ‘The Scientific Chronicle ” is always 
extremely interesting and valuable. Inthe July number, the first 
place is fitly given to the Rev. Hugh T. Henry’s able and elaborate 
criticism of certain historical publications issued by the Department 
of History in the University of Pennsylvania. - Even the unlearned 
reader can perceive the profound erudition of the article on Ecclesiastes 
by the Rev. A. J. Maas, 8.J. Few better appreciations of Gladstone 
have been given than Mr. John J. O’Shea’s ‘‘ England’s Second Great 
Commoner ”; which is followed by an admirable obituary of Sir John 
T. Gilbert. 

13. The fullest and best account that we have seen of the wonderful 
centuries of miracles at St. Winfred’s Well, in North Wales, is going 
on at present week by week in Zhe Lamp, the oldest of our Catholic 
periodicals, which has been doing good in its modest way for some 


568 The Irish Monthly. 


seventy years through many changes and vicissitudes. It ought to write 
ite autobiography. Father Lockhart, Madame Belloo, John Francis 
O'Donnell, and many other interesting names would figure in the story. 


14. ‘ Westward the course of empire takesits way.” Some of our 
best Irish literary talent is at present employed in Americaz 
magazines. Zhe Ave Maria has begun a serial historical novel, or a 
story of Ireland in the olden times, ‘‘ Katherine of Desmond ” by Rosa 
Mulholland-Gilbert ; and a grave and learned periodical for priests, 
dhe American Ecclesiastical Review, is delighting its readers with a 
strictly professional serial called ‘‘My New Ourate,’’ which we can 
safely attribute to a distinguished Cloyne priest. We have heard 
before of a journal written by gentlemen for gentlemen; but this is 
almost the first instance of a novel written by a priest for priests. 


15 Messrs. Gill and Son of Dublin, our own publishers, have just 
brought out a new book, “ St. Joseph of Jesus and Mary,” of which 
the editor of this Magazine is author, and therefore cannot be critic. 
But it is allowable to describe it as a prose companion to ‘‘ St. Joseph's 
Anthology ” published last year. The form is somewhat original, as 
it is not made up of short meditations but rather long essays about 
the great Foster-father’s prerogatives and various aspects of his 
character. An appendix contains an “aftermath” of poems that 
ought to have found a place in the previous volume. 

16. The latest publications of the Catholic Truth Society are two 
admirable penny tracts by the Rev. George Bampfield—‘‘ Why in 
Latin ?”’ (namely, the Church’s Liturgy) and Part I1. of “The Mother 
and the Son,” in which many questions about the Blessed Virgin, and 
other matters also, are discussed very cleverly between a certain Father 
O'Flanagan and acertain carpenter whom heisinstructing for conditional 
baptism—with a certain Winifride looming in the distance, and very 
probably Matrimony serving as a second sacrament of Confirmation. 
But by far the most marvellous of the C. T. S. pennyworths is “A 
Simple Dictionary for Catholics containing the words in common use 
relating to faith and practice,” edited by Charles Henry Bowden of 
the Oratory. The type, though clear, is certainly very small. Printed 
in the ordinary way, it would be a shilling book at least; and we are 
almost sorry that that form was not adopted for so useful a work. 

17. Messrs. M. H. Gill and Son have brought outthe first partof the 
Introduction to Dr. Geoffrey Keating’s History of Ireland, edited by 

Mr. David Comyn, one of the most zealous and most competent of the 
many devoted Irish scholars who are working with such energy and 
perseverance for the revival and preservation of the old Celtic tongue. 
Part I. contains the text with a translation and notes, and costs one 
shilling. 





NOVEMBER, 1808. 





THE IRISH POEMS OF MR. AUBREY DE VERE. 


IE has often been said that no Irish poet has done for the 

history and scenery of Ireland what Scott has done for the 
history and scenery of Scotland. I endeavoured to show you 
when I last addressed you what a vast volume of fine poetry had 
gathered round Irish scenery and its legendary historical and 
literary associations.* I hope to show you this evening that in 
the Irish poems of Mr. de Vere every period of Irish history from 
the twilight of its fable to the brightness of the present day has 
been dealt with more fully, more consecutively, and with a truer 
insight into its meaning than was ever done by any other poet for 
any other land. 

One has no need in reading Mr. de Vere’s poems and especially 
his Irish ones to guess at their meaning or the objects the poet 
had in view in writing them. In the 17th chapter of his charming 
volume of ‘ Recollections’ recently published and in a letter 
written to myself after I had told him I had undertaken this 
lecture, he states what he had before him when he wrote the . 
poems. “TI have endeavoured,” he wrote to me “ to illustrate 
four periods of Ireland’s records. Ist her heroic age, 2ndly 
her saintly age, 3rdly her medieval age, including its continuation 
down to the repeal of the Penal Laws, and lastly some incidents 
of this latter age.” Curiously enough the poems relating to the 
first three of these periods appeared exactly in their inverse order. 
I propose, however, to deal with them in the order of their 
historical chronology. 

The poems illustrating the first period are to be found in a 


* See “ The Associations of Scenery,”’ Irish Monthly, vol. XXIII., pp 193, 225. 
The present paper was read to the Students of St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth. 


Vor. xxw. No. 306 4l 


570 The Irish Monthly 


volume published in 1882, entitled “The Foray of Queen 
Meave and other Legends of Ireland's Heroic Age.” “The Voyage 
of Queen Meave” is founded on and in substance represents the 
far-famed Tain-bo-Cuailgne or “The Cattle Spoil of Cooley,” in 
the County of Louth. It is regarded by many Irish scholars as the 
great Irish epic of ancient times, while others treat it as a part of 
some larger epic of which only the fragments remain. It bears 
the same relation to old Irish history as the Argonautic Expedition 
and the “Seven against Thebes’’ bear to the history of Greece. 
The late Professor O’Curry states that in the sixth century it was 
believed that the famous King of Ulster, Fergus MacRoy, was the 
original writer of the Tain. On this supposition it must have 
existed in a rudimental form a little before the Christian era. It 
was lost for several centuries, and two legends exist as to its 
recovery. According to the Book of Leinster Senchan, the chief 
bard of Erin, called a meeting of the bards together, and, finding 
that none remembered more than fragments, asked if any one of 
them would go in quest of the Tain. Murgen, one of the bards, 
and Senchan’s son, volunteered for the purpose, and having set 
out on their journey the first place they came to was the tomb of 
Fergus. Murgen seated himself on the grave and composed a lay 
to the gravestone of Fergus as if it had been Fergus himself he 
was addressing. ‘“‘Suddenly,” as the story runs, “there came a 
“ great mist which enveloped him so that he could not be discovered 
“ for three days, and during that time Fergus appeared to him in 
é a beautiful form, for he is described as adorned with brown hair, 
solad in a green cloak, a collared gold-ribbed shirt, a gold-hilted 
‘sword and sandals of bronze, and it is said that this apparition 
“related to Murgen the whole tale of the Tain from beginning 
“to end.” This legend ie the subject of a fine poem by Sir 
Samuel Ferguson “The Tain Quest.”’ According to another 
legend it was at a meeting of the Bards and some of the Saints of 
Erin called by the chief Bard to meet at the grave of Fergus that 


the Tain was recovered. 
Five Saints obeyed, 
And o’er that venerable spot three days, 
Fasting, made prayer, while knelt the bards around. 
Then on the third day, as the sun uprose, 
Behold a purple mist engirt the grave 
And from it fair as rainbow backed by cloud 
Shonc out a kingly phantom robed in green. 














The Irish Poems of Mr. Aubrey de Vere. 571 


They who saw the shape 
‘Well knew him, Fergus Roy, the exiled king. 
Gracious as in the old days the king rehearsed 
The tale so long desired. 


Straight with help 
It may be of the Bards St. Kieran wrote 
The Heroic song on parchment fine, the skin 
Of one he loved, his “little heifer grey ”’ 
That gave the book its name, 


The Book is known as the “ Lowr na Heera” or “The 
book of the dark Grey Cow,” and is still extant in the Royal Irish 
Academy. Fergus MacRoy is one of the noblest figures in 
Ireland's Heroic Age. Royal-hearted in all his ways, brave, 
magnanimous, truthful and just, and yet so patriotically 
indifferent to power that he abandoned his throne when he 
discovered that his subjects preferred his step-son, Conor, a man it 
is true more sagacious, but perfidious and implacable. Disgusted 
and incensed at the treacherous murder by command of Conor of 
the sons of Usnach, whose safe conduct Fergus had guaranteed, 
he had retired from the Court of the Ulster King, and at the date 
of the events of the Tain was a resident at the Court of Meave, 
Queen of Connaught. There were at the same time a large body 
of Ulstermen in Meave’s service who had for the same reason 
abandoned Conor. The cause and motive of the events of the 
Tain were rather prosaic. It would appear that the rights of 
married women to hold and deal with property separately from 
their husbands, although not introduced into English law until 
the close of the 18th century, and not fully established until 1882, 
were known and recognised in these early times. Meave and her 
husband, Ailill, had a dispute one day, each claiming to be 
wealthier than the other. Their lords decided that the king and 
queen are great and happy alike in all things save one, that 
Ailill possessed the far-famed white Bull “ White-horned.”’? Meave 
hearing that Conor boasts a black bull mightier yet, and having 
failed in her efforts to purchase it determines to invade Ulster for 
the purpose of getting it into her possession. This invasion of 
Ulster is the subject of the Tain. The expedition is led by 
Meave herself and is accompanied by Fergus MacRoy and the 
exiled Ulstermen. Fergus takes much the place of the Agamemnon 
of the expedition. But the main interest centres round Cuchullain, 





672 The Irish Monthly. 


the foster son of Conal Carnach and immeasurably the greatest 
of all Ireland’s legendary warriors. ‘‘ Cuchullain has been called 
“the Achilles of early Erin, yet with the swiftness, the fierce 
‘impulse, and indomitable might that belongs to the Greek he 
é“ blends in perfect harmony qualities that remind us more of 
“ Heotor. Like him he is the defender of the city more inspired 
“by patriotic zeal than even by the love of glory, like him 
‘‘he is generous, modest, forbearing to the weak. It isto the 
“ strong only that he is unpitying and even in his dealings with 
é“ them there is no ferocity. They have to die, and heslays them. 
“His devotion to Ferdia ia tenderer than that of Achilles to 
é“ Patroclus, but on him there has fallen a sterner duty. He has 
é not to avenge that friend but to encounter and lay him low as 
‘“‘ the invader of Uladh.” Faythleen the witch warns Meave. 


Beware that youth. 
Pity he knows for none. 


Mr. de Vere states that he used the prose translation of 
Professor O’ Looney, and so the course of the poem follows closely 
the course of the Tain. I can only go through it very rapidly. 
It consists of five parts or fragments. The first part deals with 
the cause of the war and the previous feats of Cuchullain’s child- 
hood and youth, including the memorable encounter with the 
Hound of the Smith, from which he derived his name, and which 
I brought before you when I last addressed you. The second 
part deals with the “ Deeds of Cuchullain.” He had been 
hanging on the edge of the invading force ‘‘ harassing and 
killing.” 

Viewless by day, by night a fleeting fire 
Dragged down their mightiest. 


Fergus tries with gifts to induce him to leave the service of 
Conor. This he will not do, but consents to forbear Meave’s host 
if his demand be granted, that in accordance with the laws of 
Irish chivalry the warfare shall be restricted to a combat between 
himself and a single champion sent against him day by day until 
he is conquered. The demand is granted, and for ninety days a 
succession of single combats ensues, in all of which Cuchullain is 


* Introduction to ‘‘The foray of Queen Moave and other Legends of Ireland's 
“Yeroic Age.’ 











The Irish Poems of Mr. Aubrey de Vere. 473 


victorious. In the meanwhile, through the spells of Faythleen, a 
madness fell over Ulster. 


A mist hung o'er it heavy, and on her sons 
Imbecile spirit and a heartless mind 
And base soul -sickness, 


The spell is broken by the dread Mor Rega, goddess of war. 
‘The part ends with a fine description of the breaking of the spell, 
and how Cuchullain’s charioteer yokes to the war chariot the white 
and black magic steeds of his master, and how when men heard 
“the hurricane of wheels,” 


On stony plain in hamlet and in vale 
They muttered in their sleep, ‘‘ deliverance comes.” 


The finest part of the poem is the third Fragment called 
‘<The Combat at the Ford.” Ferdia, although a Firbolg and not 
a Gael, was an old and sworn friend of Cuchullain, 


Far away in Scatha’s isle 
A great troth bound us and a vow eterne 
Never to raise war-weapon each on each, 


Queen Meave sends her herald to Ferdia, requiring him to 
engage with Cuchullain in single combat. He refuses to fight 
against his ancient friend, but later on he attends a royal banquet 
given in his honour, and there yielding to the witcheries of the 
Princess Finobar, he consents to the fight. For two days the two 
friends contend against each other with reluctance and remorse, 
but in very real and terrible earnest. The place of the combat 
was near Ardee, which name it derives from Ferdia. On the 
third day the fight becomes fiercer. 


Sharper that day their speech, 
For in the intenger present years gone by 
Hung but like pallid, thin horizon clouds 
O’er memory’s loneliest limit. 


On the fourth day : 


From heaven 
Came down upon Cuchullain like the night 
The madness rage, 


Then ensues a fight told with Homeric vigour. The end is 
thus described : 


574 The Trish Monthly. 


Cuchullain's shield splintered upon his arm 

Served him no more ; and through his fenoeless side 
Ferdia drave the sword. Then firet the Gael 
Hurled forth this: ‘‘ the taunt Firbolg bribed by Meave 
Has sold his ancient friend!” Ferdia next : 

“ No Firbolg he the man in Scatha’s isle 

Who won a maid then left her.” Backward stepped 
Cuchullain paces three, he reached the bank, 

He uttered low “the Gae bulg.’’ Instant Leagh 
Within his hand had lodged it. Bending low 

He launched it on Ferdia’s breast. The shield, 
The iron plate beneath, the stone within it, 

Like shallow ice-films ’neath a warrior’s hoof, 
Burst. All waso’er. To earth the warrior sank. 
Dying he spake : ‘‘ not thine this deed O, friend, 
’Twas Meave that winged that bolt into my heart. 


The death of his friend drives away the madness-rago, and 
Cuchullain, filled with grief and remorse, lovingly lays the body 
upon the bank on the northern side, and standing over him sings 
his dirge. I regret space will not allow me to give more of this 
beautiful dirge than its concluding lines. You will observe the 
reproduction of the iterated or burthen lines which appear in the 
original poem. | 

Each battle was a game, a jest, a sport, 

Till came fore-doomed Ferdia to the ford. 

I loved the warrior though I pierced his heart. 
Each battle was a game, a jest, a sport, 

Till stood self-doomed Ferdia by the Ford, 
Huge lion of the forestry of war. 

Fair central pillar uf the House of Fame 


But yesterday he towered above the world, 
This day he lies along the earth a shade, 


Cuchullain lies long in the forest nigh to death from his wounds, 
and yet more through grief for Ferdia. Meave crosses the Ford 
into Ulster, the invasion of which forms the fourth Fragment. 
She captures the black Bull. But Ulster raises itself daily out of 
its trance of imbecility. “A piercing sadness’’ falls on Meave 
from the failure of her daughter Finobar to win one of the noblest 
chiefs of Conor, and her subsequent death. Her buried son, 
Orlof, appears to her and warns her back to her native realm and 


Southward next morn 
She turned and crossed the ford. 


The Irish Poems of Mr. Aubrey de Vere. 575 


The fifth and last Fragment deals with the retreat of Meave. 
Conal Carnach and the Red Branch Knights advance against the 
retreating host. The supreme command is transferred to Fergus, 
who prepares for the attack. A battle ensues which is gloriously 
won by Fergus.. That night Cuchullain, weak from his wounds, 
arrives in the Ulster camp. From midnight to near sunset he lay 
in a trance from which it was Geisa to wake him. These Geisa, 
often as trivial in character as they were rigidly enforced, have a 
large place in the Irish legends of pre Christian times. They 
were certain sacred injunctions; sometimes personal, sometimes 
general, the violation of which was attended with temporal 
punishment. They were analagous to the “ Taboo” of the south 
sea islanders, and of the Maoris of New Zealand, of which you 
. may read a graphic and amusing account in Mark Twain’s 
“ More Tramps Abroad.” In this trance there came to him 
visions of some mystic future glory to Ireland which he was 
unable to understand. Amid the shock and din of a second 


battle 
A change 


Flashed o’er Cuchullain’s face. 


He rises 
Full armed for fight, a champion, spear in hand, 
Work of some God. Swift from his tent he strode, 
Without the hand of man there stood his car 
And those immortal steeds pawing the air. 


é With wonted battle cry’’ he rushes into the thick of the 


fight ‘‘ mantled in sunset. ” 
On and on 
And ever through that foe thick packed he clave 
A lane of doom and death. 


He saves the life of Meave, but drives her and her army in 
utter overthrow beyond the Shannon. The Bull, the cause of 
the war, had been sent on before the second battle. He fights 
with Ailill’s white Bull and kills him, and then in the dimness of 
the next morning mistaking a rock for 


A second Bull, collecting all his might 
hereon he hurled his giant bulk and died. 


Such is a brief and imperfect outline of this remarkable poem. 
I wish I could have given you some better idea of the force and 
vigour of its descriptive scenes, the stateliness of ite versification, 





576 The Irish Monthly. 


and the beauty and affluence of its numerous illustrations. There 
is preserved in it too what is a distinguishing mark of this and all 
the old Irish legends, a strong sense of honour in the midst of 
the most lawless enterprises and a high reverence for woman, for 
the Druid, and the Bard. The same volume contains ‘‘ The 
Children of Lir” and “ The Sons of Usnach.” The first of these 
poems is a very beautiful version of the legend which Moore has 
dealt with in the melody “ Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy 
water.” “The Sona of Usnach ” tells of their treacherous murder 
by command of Conor, to which I have already referred, and how 
Deirdre, the wife of one of them, died of grief on the body of her 
slaughtered husband. Critics who regard the Tain as a single 
fragment of an Irish epic include this among the remaining 
fragments. The idea of fate enters into it as strongly as into any 
Greek play. Deirdre is the child of destiny, but of all those who 
have a part in the tale is the one least subdued by the destiny 
which she strives in vain to avert. When she sings over their 
graves the dirge of the three famous brothers, she wails for them 
only and not for herself, though, when the dirge is over, she falls 
dead at their feet. I regret I cannot tarry over and examine 
for you in detail either of these fine poems. 

[come now to the poems dealing with the “Saintly Age ” of 
Ireland. They are to be found mainly in the volume entitled 
“ Legends of St. Patrick,”’ published in 1872. The legends dealt 
with by the poems of this volume are of two olasses. The earlier 
legends respecting St. Patrick are at once the more authentic and 
the nobler. These higher legends are for the most part the subject 
of the blank verse poems in the book. Mr. de Vere tells us they 
do not profess to keep close to the original sources except as regards 
their spirit and the manners of the time described, which are to be 
found chiefly in some very excellent lives of St. Patrick, the most 
valuable of which is the “ Tripartite life.” There is a later class 
of legends found in the poems respecting St. Patrick and the old 
Irish warrior poet Oisin, better known to us under the name of 
Ossian. They consist chiefly of poetic contentions between him 
and St. Patrick, in which the blind Bard, represented in his 
friendless old age as the guest of St. Patriok, responds to the 
Saint’s preaching by singing the praises of his father Fionn, of 
his son Osoar, and the friends of his youth. In this there isa 
serious anachronism, for Ossian had died two centuries before 


The Irish Poems of Mr. Aubrey de Vere. 577 


St. Patrick’s mission, yet these dialogues which are referred by 
O’Curry tothe 9th and 10th century, do not the less visibly 
illustrate the relations partly friendly, partly hostile between the 
new religion and the old world of bards and kings to which I 
will refer later on. To this class belong most of the poems in 
lyrical metres contained in this volume. I will endeavour to give 
you briefly a sketch of the principal poems. The first of them is 
é“ The Disbelief of Milcho,” King of North Dalaraida, Patrick's 
old and cruel master and the one failure of his mission. The 
poem begins with a description of the Saint’s second arrival in 
Ireland, and of the opening of his first mission, and of his first 
converts. 
Upon that shore 

Full many knelt and gave themselves to Christ. 

Strong men and men at midmost of their hopes 

By sickness felled, old chiefs at life’s dim close, 

That oft had asked ‘‘ Beyond the grave what hope f ” 

Worn sailors weary of the toilsome seas 

And craving rest, they too that sex which wears 

The blended crowns of chastity and love. 

Wondering they hailed the maiden-motherhood, 


And listening children praised the Babe divine 
And passed Him each to each. 


Patrick is then joined by the youth Benignus who was to 
succeed him in Armagh, and after further travels and more 
conversions he sets out on his undertaking to convert Milcho, who 
has already heard of his arrival and of his marvellous teachings. 
At the news 

Straightway Milcho’s face 
Grew blacker than the crab-tree stem forlorn 


That bid him, wanner than sea-sand when wet 
Whitens around the feet down-pressed. 


1 cannot linger over the splendid passages describing the self- 
communings of Milcho as 
Sin-walled he stood 


God’s angel could not pierce that cinoture dread 
Nor he look through it. 


or his final resolve “ I will to disbelieve.” 
He heaps within his castle his stored up wealth, “yea all things 
that were his,” and when he sees Patrick and his companions 


578 The Irish Monthly. 


descending a spur of Sleemish he flings a lighted brand into the 
pile and 
Dashed himself into the raging flame 

And perished as a leaf. 

They saw the smoke, and the roaring of the flames reached 


them. 
All heard that sound, all felt it. 


One only knew its import. Patrick turned. 
‘¢ The deed is done, the man I would have eaved 
Is dead because he willed to disbelieve.’’ 


The greatest of the legends and I think the finest of the poems 
is “The Striving of St. Patrick on Mount Cruachan,” now 
Croagh Patrick. On the fourth day of his second Lent he 
greeted his disciples at the mountain foot— 

‘¢ Bide ye here 
Till I return,’’ and straightway set his face 
Alone to that great hill of eagles named 
Huge Cruachan, that o’er the western deep 


Hung through sea mist with shadowing crag on crag, 
High ridged and dateloss forest long since dead. 


His great work had been completed, but, foreknowing that 
great trials were in store for Ireland, he came to pray one great 
prayer that Ireland might remain steadfast and true to the faitb 
as long as the world lasted. The Angel of the Lord appears to 
him and bids him not to demand the gifts his soul demanded, for 
they were over great for granting, to which he replies— 

Thie mountain Cruachan I will not leave 

Alive till all be granted to the last. 

Then knelt he on the clouded mountain base 

And was in prayer, and, wrestling with the Lord, 


Demanded wondrous things immeasurable, 
Not easy to be granted for the land. 


In the midst of cold and storm, drenched by fierce rains and 
bursting torrents, and assailed on all sides by angry demons, he 
continues his prayers. He hears a voice say 


Too fierce that race to bend to faith. 


Another : 
Although the pzople shonld believe 


Yet conquerors’ heel one day their faith shall quell. 


And yet another: 
Grown soft, that race their Faith shall shame. 








The Irish Poems of Mr. Aubrey de Vere. 579 


On Holy Saturday the storm ceases, and sunshine and calm 
come back. Then his guardian angel Victor appears to him and 
bids him depart, for that God has given him wondrous gifts. 
Patrick declares he will not go until the last boon he asks for has 
been granted. Three times the angel tells him the gifts God has 
given him, but Patrick declares they are not enough. 


Then spake once more that courteous angel kind, 

“ What boon demand’st thou?’’ And the Saint: ‘ No less 
Than this. Though every nation ere that day 

Recreant from creed and Christ, old troth forsworn : 

Should flee the sacred scandal of the Cross 

In pride of life—as once the Apostles fled in fear ; 

This nation of my love, a priestly house. 

Beside that Cross shall stand, fate-firm, like him 

That stood beside Christ’s mother.”’ 


The angel returns to Lleaven, and Patrick continued in prayer 
until the evening, when the angel Victor again stands by his side 
and tells him that the Lord has heard his prayer. 


That thou sought’ st 
Shall lack not consummation. Many a race 
Shrivelling in sunshine of its prosperous years 
Shall cease,from faith and shamed though shameless sink 
Back to its native clay, but over thine 
God shall the shadow of His Hand extend, 
And through the night of centuries teach to her 
In woe that song which, when the nations wake, 
Shall sound their glad deliverance; nor alone 
‘This nation from the blind dividual dust 
Of instincts brute, thoughts driftless, warring wills 
By thee evoked and shapen by thy hands 
To God’s fair image, which confers alone 
Manhood on nations, shall to God stand true : 
But nations far in undiscovered seas, 
Her stately progeny, while ages fleet, 
Shall wear the kingly ermine of her Faith 
For ever. 
Then Patrick knelt and blessed the land, and said, 
‘* Praise be to God who hears a sinner’s prayer.”’ 


Another fine poem is “St. Patrick and the Founding of 
Armagh Cathedral.” It is, I believe, now admitted, that the site 
chosen by St. Patrick is the hill on which the Protestant 
Cathedral of Armagh now stands. Desiring to build a great 





580 The Irish Monthly. 


church before he died, he is directed by an angel to Macha, now 
Armagh. He takes with him 
Workers of might in iron and in stone 


God-taught to build the churches of the faith 
With wisdom and with heart-delighting craft. 


The journey is made in Spring which is thus described. 


Spring-touched the blackbird sang; green grassy lawns 
The cowslips changed to golden, and grey rock 

And river’s marge with primroses were starred. 

Here shook the windflower; there the blue-bells gleame1 
As though a patch of sky had fallen on earth. 


After a time and not without trouble and hesitation King 
Daire grants the hill to St. Patrick and bids him build thereon 


Strong mother church for all thy great clan Christ. 


The site is selected on the crown of the hill beside a milk- 
white thorn beneath whose shade a white fawn was sleeping, 
whose dam had been startled from its side. Daire scornfully asks 
why Patrick should turn forester, and he refers the king to 
Benignus, who gives the reason 

“ Great mystery, King, is love. 
For this cause he our sire 
Revered the auguish of that mother due, 
And inly vowed that where her offspring couched 
His chiefest church should stand from age to age. 


Confession plain "mid raging of the clans 
That God is love. 


The church is then built, but 
The saint who built it found not there his grave, 


and a very learned ccntroversy exists as to whether Downpatrick 
or Dundalk can claim the honour of his burial place. But the 
angel Victor carries to him the promise of the Lord 


So long as sea 
Girdeth this isle so long thy name shall hang 
In splendour o’er it like the stars of God, 


From the “ Confession of St. Patrick ” I can only quote these 
lines 
Happy isle, 
God with a wondrous ring hath wedded thee, 
God on a throne divine had ‘stablished thee, 
Light of a darkling world, Lamp of the North. 





The Irish Poems of Mr. Aubrey de Vere. 581 


I have not space to bring before you the remainder of these 
poems. “The Children of Fochlut Wood” commemorates the 
ery of the children by night which dragged the Saint back from a 
free land to Ireland. “St. Patrick at Cashel” illustrates the 
passionate loyalty of the ancient Irish to chiefs who were no less 
loyal to their people. Of the others I must be content to name 
“The Baptism of Afngus ” in Cashel, during which the crozier of 
St. Patriok pierced the foot of the King, who says with uncom- 
plaining humility 

I thought that, called to follow Him whose feet 
Were pierced with nails, haply the blessed rite 
Some little pain included. 

I am also obliged to omit all reference to the numerous 
illustrations from nature after the Homeric fashion which stud these 
poems as well as the poems dealing with the Heroic age. I cannot 
however conclude this part of my lecture without giving one 
specimen of the Ussianio poems in the volume. They are all 
interesting and beautiful. I select a few stanzas from the one 
which I think is the most characteristic. It is called ‘“‘ The 
Contention,” : 


Not seldom crossed by bodings sad, 
In words though kind yet hard, 

Spake Patrick to his guest Oiseen, 
For Patrick loved the bard. 


In whose broad bosom swathed with beard, 
Like cliffs with ivy trailed, 

A Christian strove with a Pagan soul, 
And neithar quite prevailed. 


Oiseen laments the chiefs of his young days, and tells Patrick 
that if they were living they would take his book and break his . 
bell, and wreck his convent, and lash his tribe from the land. 
Patrick rebukes him and bids him 


Forget thy chiefs 
And thy deeds gone by forego. 


One question, O Patrick, I ask of thee, 
Thou king of the saved and shriven ? 

My sire and his chiefs have they their placo 
In thy city star-built of heaven ? 


Oiseen, old chief of the harp and sword, 
That questionest of the soul, 

That city they tread not who loved but war, 
Their realm is a realm of dole. 


582 The Irish Monthly. 


By this head thou liest, thou son of Calphurn 
In heaven I would scorn to bide 
If my father and Oscar were exiled men 
And no friend at my side. 
Then man with the chaunt and then man with the creed, 
This thing I demand of thee, 
My dog may he puss through the gates of heaven? 
May my wolf-hound enter free ? 


Old man, not the buzzing gnat may pass 
Nor sunbeam leok in unbiddeu, 

Tho king there sceptred knows all, sees all— 
From him there is nothing hidden, 


Then Oiseen uplifted his old white head 
Like hghtning from hoary skies, 

A flash went forth ’neath the shaggy roofs 
Low bent o’er his sightless eyes. 


Though my life sinks down and I sit in the dust, 
Blind warrior and gray-haired man, 

Mine were they of old, thou priest over-bold, 
Those chiofs of Baocigne’s clan. 


And he cried while a spasm his huge frame shook : 
‘¢ ])im shadows like men before me, 

My father was Fionn and Oscar my son, 
Though to-day ye stand vaunting it o’er me.” 


Thus raged Oiseen ’mid the fold of Christ 
Still roaming old deserts wide, 

In the storm of thought like a lion old, 
Though lamblike at last he died. 


The poems which deal with the medissval period of Irish history 
were first published in 1868, under the title of “ Inistail,” and are 
included under the same title in the 5th Volume of Mr. de Vere’s 
poems now being published by Macmillan. He calls the collection 
a ‘ Lyrical Chronicle of Ireland ” and to use his own words “‘ it is 
an attempt to represent as in a picture the most stormy but the 
most poetic period of Irish history.” The period included Lies 
between the latter part of the 12th century and the latter part of 
the 18th. These six momentous centuries divide themselves into 
three periods, and the poems which illustrate them are divided 
into three corresponding parts. The first period lasted for 350 
years. Its prominent characteristic was outlawry, and the first 
part of the poems are collected under the title. The Brehon law 





The Tish Foems of Mr. Aubrey de Vere. 583 


was set aside by the Norman conqueror, but the protection of 
English law was not extended to the conquered although frequently 
applied for by them to the English Kings. It istold in Plowden’s 
History of Ireland that on one occasion the Irish offered 8000 
marks to Edward I., “provided he would grant the free enjoy- 
ment of the laws of England to the whole body of the Irish 
natives indescriminately.” Edward was disposed to accept the 
offer, but his politic and benevolent intentions were thwarted by 
his nobles to forward their own rapacious views of extortion and 
oppression. The second period is characterised by the wars of 
Religion which give the name to the second part of the poems. 
The period illustrated begins in the reign of Elizabeth and ends 
with the dethronement of James II. These wars completed the 
estrangement between England and Ireland, but they also com- 
pleted the union in Ireland of the Gaelic and Norman races. The 
third period is that of the Penal Laws which are the subject of 
the third part of the poems. These three periods are thus described 
in the prologue : 
For ages three without Laws ye shall flee as beasts in the foreat, 
For an age and a half age Faith shall bring not peace but a sword. 


Then laws shall rend you like eagles sharp fang’d, of your scourges the sorest ; 
When these three woes aro past look up for your Hope is restored. 


Mr. de Vere writes in the “ Recollections: ” “ No other poem of 
mine was written more intensely, I may say more painfully, from 
my heart than Inisfail.” He intended, he tells us, that it should 
represent in the main the songs of the old Irish Bards (if only 
they could have been preserved) as the best exponent of the 
Emotion and Imagination of the Race during the period of 
affliction, but at the same time to bring into prominence the 
counsels of the Irish priests respecting the forgiveness of injuries, 
obedience to the Divine will, penitence, and a Hope that nothing 
could subdue. The chief national sin of the early Irish was 
vindictiveness. The paganism, which taught the wild justice of 
revenge died hard and long, pervaded the bardic poetry. With 
the Bards for a long time the old and new creeds flowed on with- 
out intermingling. As at Geneva, where the Rhone rushing out 
of the lake, a clear blue river is joined a little below the oity by 
the turbid and muddy waters of the Arve, which flow alongside it 
quite distinctly for several miles; even so the old stream of 
paganism can be traced for a long time in the poetry of the bards 


584 The Irish Monthly. 


flowing alongside and in strange contrast to the clear waters of 
Christian truth—the truth which taught men to look for forgive- 
ness of their own trespasses as they forgave those who trespassed 
against them. In the poems written in bardic fashion in the first 
part of Inisfail this running together without intermingling is 
kept in view and is shown with great skill and clearness. “ The 
contention ” of St. Patrick and Oiseen already referred to, is a 
very good example of it. Let me give you another out of many 
taken from a poem called the “ The Bard Ethell ” supposed to be 
written in the 13th century. 


I forgive old Cathbar who sank my boat, 
Must I pardon Feargal who slew my son, 
Or the pirate, Strongbow, who burned Granote ?— 
They tell me in it nine priests, a nun 
And—worst—St. Finian’s old crosier staff. 
At forgiveness like that I spit and laugh. 
My chief in his wine cups forgave twelve men, 
And of these a dozen rebelled again. 


Inisfail was called a lyrical chronicle of Ireland. But the 
poems in all the three parts are not confined to lyrics. In addition 
to these and to the imitations of bardic poems, the principal events 
of Irish history during the period are dealt with in many a stir- 
ring ballad, many a noble ode and many a wailing dirge. Thus 
in the poems of the days of outlawry there is a fine poem on the 
Statute of Kilkenny, passed in 1362, which enacted that inter- 
marriages with the natives or any connection with them as 
fosterers, or in the way of gossipred, should be punished as high 
treason, that the use of their names, language, apparel or customs, 
should be punished with the forfeiture of lands, and that to submit 
to be governed by the Brehon laws was treason. 

A cry comes up from wood and wold, 
A wail from fen and marish, 
“ Grant us our lands and take our gold, 
Like beasts dog-chased we perish.”’ 
The hunters of their kind reply, 
“ Our sports we scorn to barter ; 


We rule! the Irish enemy 
Partakea not England's charter. 


Of the poems dealing with the Wars of Religion I would 
especially name a splendid ode called “The War Song of 
“irconnell’s Bard at the Battle of Blackwater.” The ode 





The lrish Poems of Mr. Aubrey de Vere. 585 


celebrates the utter route of Elizabeth’s army, led by Marshal 
Bagenal, by Red Hugh O'Neill, Prince of Tyrone, and Red Hugh 
O'Donnell, Prince of Tyrconnell, on the 14th August, 1598. 


Blest is that spot and holy, 
There ages past St Bercan stood and cried 
This spot shall quell one day the invader's pride. 


The victory of Mountjoy later on over these two great northern 
chiefs at Kinsale, after their marvellous winter march to relieve 
their Spanish allies, is the subject of two poems “The March to 
Kinsale,” and “ Kinsale.” “The Suppression of the Faith in 
Ulster,” after the compulsory flight of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, 
and “ The Plantation of Ulster,” are other odes in the Bardio 
fashion. So too is the ode describing the Battle of Benburb, and 
the beautiful dirge over Owen Roe O'Neill which follows it. 
This dirge is in my opinion a finer poem and conceived in a truer 
Bardic spirit than the better known Lament by Davis. Here are 
two stanzas : 


So tis over. Lift the dead. 
Bear him to his place of rest, 
Broken heart and blighted head, 

Lay the Cross upon his breast. 


Lords and priests, ye talked and talked 
In Kilkenny’s Council Hall, 

But this man whose game ye baulked 
Was the one man ’mong ge all. 


The third part of Inisfail is entitled “ The Penal Laws,” and 
é“ The Victory of Endurance.’”’ Some of the most beautiful poems 
in the collection are to be found in this part. Sometimes it is a 
ballad of some historic incident, again it is an ode in memory of 
some great saintly or historic incident. Sometimes they take the 
form of imaginative allegory, and sometimes they are modelled, 
and beautifully modelled, on the Lamentations of the Hebrew 
prophets. But in whatever shape they are presented they illustrate 
every phase and important incident of those dark days when 


In the halls of their fathers an alicn held feast, 

‘heir Church was a cave and au outlaw their priest, 

‘The birds have their nests and thé foxes their holes; 
What had these? Like a sunrise God shone in their souls, 


Vor. xxvi. No, 305. 42 


586 The Irish Monthly. 


As a good specimen iu the ballad form I would mention “ The 
Ballad of the Lady turned Beggar.”’ The Irish who fought for 
Charles I., and whose estates were in consequence confiscated 
looked in vain, with very few exceptions, for their restoration on 
the accession of his worthless son. The Ballad gives a pathetic 
description of the widow of Lord Roche, one of these Royalists 
who used to be seen begging through the streets of Cork. There 
ure also songs and ballads of the Brigade consisting, as you know, 
of the soldiers of James who took service with more than one 
European sovereign and made the name of Ireland famous. 


Bless the bold Brigade, 
‘May God go with them horse and blade 
For Faith’s defence and Ireland's aid. 


There is a ballad of Sarsfield or the “ bursting of the guna ” when 


Sarafield rode out the Dutch to rout 
And to take or break their cannon, 

A century after Sarsfield’s laughter 
Was echoed from Dungannon. 


The ballad of “ Athlone,” which gives a picture of how the 
Irish under Sarrfield broke down the bridge of Athlone in the 
face of the enemy, is worthy to take its place beside the well- 
known ballad in which Macaulay tells how the bridge over the 
Tiber was hewn down behind the dauntless three who held it “in 
the brave days of old.” For poems dealing with great saintly or 
historic names, I would single out the poems on the martyred 
Oliver Plunkett, and the fine lines to Grattan. Perhaps the best 
instance of imaginative allegory is the poem called “ A Hundred 
Years.” It represents Ireland constituting in its poverty and 
privations, as it were, a new religious Order 


Of rule and life more strict 
Than that which Basil reared in Galilee, 
In Egypt Paul, in Umbria Bencdict. 


Where are its cloisters? Where the felon sleeps. 
Where its novitiate ? Where the last wolf died. 
From sea to sea its vigil long it keeps 
Stern Foundress is its rule not mortified. 


Of the poems modelled on the Lamentations I must content 





The Irish Poems of Mr. Aubrey de Vere. 587 


2? 


myself with mentioning thoge entitled “ Quomodo sedet sola, 
“ Bederunt in terra,” and “ Adhaesit lingua lactantis.” 

In these three works which I have thus endeavoured to bring 
under your notice there is Lo be found a complete history in verse 
of all that is best and greatest in the history of Ireland. It may 
be objected that it is a history in fragments. But after all the 
history of Ireland is nowhere to be found except in fragments. 
There is, however, one golden cord which, through all the years 
of that history, binds these fragments together, and thank God 
continues still to bind them, the golden cord of the Faith. 
“ Religion,” says Mr. de Vere, “ was Ireland’s unity.” In all his 
Irish poems he always keeps in view, and ever brings prominently 
forward, Ireland’s faithful adhesion to the Faith and her special 
and glorious mission of evangelizing the nations. In them we 
find the explanation of those visions of some mystic greatness for 
Ireland which came to Cuchullain in his trance, but of an order 
which he was unable to understand. In them too is shown the 
fulfilment of the promise wrung by the prayers of St. Patrick on 
the lonely mountain side. To use again Mr, de Vere’s own words: 
‘* Alone among the northern nations Ireland remained faithful. 
é But had her earlier calamities nothing to do with that later 
é“ fidelity ? Much every way. When a new Faith was backed 
é“ by Penal Laws, by whom were those Penal Laws to be obeyed ? 
“ Not by Norman Barons, whose law had ever been their own will. 
‘* Not by Gaelic serfs from whom their Jaw had been taken. One 
“of the lessons taught us by Irish history is this, that to the 
“ different nations different vocations are assigned by Providence ; 
“to one an imperial vocation, to another a commercial one, to 
‘¢ Greece an artistic one, to Ireland as to Israel a spiritual one.” * 

In his poetry, too, we are made to see that it was to Rome that 
Catholic Ireland in every age of her affliction turned for help and 
consolation. 


But far o’er the sea there is one loves me 
"Neath the southern star ; 

The fisherman’s ring my help shall bring 
And heal my scar. 


We are told in it over and over again to look to that Apostolic 
mission of our race and the graces which are to be won by it as 
the surest fountain of all its glory and happiness. 


* “é Recollections,’’ p. 354, 


688 The Irish Monthly. 


Blessed the winds that waft them forth 
To victory o'er ‘the rough sea foam. 
That race to God which conquers earth, 
Can God forget that race at home ? 


Of the poems dealing with the fourth or later period of our 
history I cannot on the present ocoasion undertake to deal, for I 
could now only do them very scanty justice. The tale of The 
Sisters,” and the poems dealing with the Irish famine years are 
very beautiful, and remarkable not alone for the sad and vivid 
pictures of the miseries of the emigrant-ship and of these dreadful 
years but for bringing out into prominence all that is best and 
truest in the character of the Irish peasantry, the love, and faith, 
and patient endurance of their daily lives and their boundless 
goodnessand charity to one another. I cannot, however, close this 
lecture without reminding you of the obligations which link 
Maynooth with the poetry of Aubrey de Vere. His were the 
sonnets which commemorated the laying of the Foundation Stone 
of your new Church. His too was the Sonnet in which was 
celebrated your happy and fortunate Centenary in which the 
prophet processions are made to sing— 

This day 
Oar task again reaches the ends of earth. 
Ireland gave mandate and her enns obty 


Ireland the Apostolic land. Four-fold 
Faith’s victories new shall pass her victories old. 


Ricuarp Paul, Carton, Q.C. 





( 589 ) 


A SONG. 


EE the fairy spring-time 
Kiss the fairy mead ; 
Hear his merry ring-rhyme, 
Whispered ere he speed, 
Luring on to full prime 
Every budding bead ;— 
Dear my heart, whate’er thou art, 
I'm with thee at thy need. 


Track the crystal moon-beam, 
Arrow silver-bright ; 

Watch the laughing trout-stream 
Ripple left and right, 

Dancing in a day-dream, 
Flashing back the light ;— 

Dear my heart, where’er thou art, 

Tis not for ever night. 


Wander where the wood-bine 
Clings around the thorn, 

Where the golden sunshine 
Gilds the growing corn; 

Listen where the pitch-pine 
Soothes the sighing morn ;— 

Dear my heart, so near thou art, 

Thou ne’er shalt live forlorn. 


( 590 ) 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 
CHAPTER XXYV. 


MR, KITTLESHOT’S PROPOSALS. 


Behold if they be not unfortunate, 

When oft the father dares not trust the son ! 
O wealth, with thee is won 

A worm to gnaw forever on his soul 

Whose abject life is laid in thy control ! 


Guipo CavaLcanri 


W®* have already seen that once Mr. Kittleshot had made up 
his mind to do a thing he was always eager to get it in 
hand without the smallest delay. More than this, however, in 
important matters he always anticipated possible difficulties, and 
the surprise of his friends was great when they discovered that, a 
month or two before he mentioned his designs, he had acquired 
the freehold of nearly a hundred acres of land in the neighbour- 
hood of the little Catholic church. The site was an admirable 
one for building purposes, and the wiseacres who were not in his 
confidence expected soon to see it covered with villa residences. 

Very soon, however, the excitement in Ridingdale became 
great. The morning conference at Colpington’s the chemist was 
larger than ever, and the afternoon discussions at Miss Rippell’s 
more heated. 

Mr. Kittleshot was going to build an institution—a hospital— 
a blue coat school—a monastery—a home for the aged poor—an 
industrial palace—a people’s hall—an orphanage—a home for 
decayed gentle-folk—a reformatory on a new principle—a 
university—a singing school—a college of music. 

Each of these things had at different times been mentioned 
both at Colpington’s and Rippell’s, by somebody who knew of it 
as a fact. 

Billy Lethers interrogated by many, shook his head, and 
looked wise. He had no information on the point that he could 
trust, and the Ridingdale boys only knew that Mr. K. was going 
to build something—immediately. 





Doings in the Dale. 59] 


Miss Rippell herself listened to everything, disbelieved much, 
and thought one of the things mentioned “quite possible.” If 
only Mr. Kittleshot himself would come into her shop some day 
—well—she felt sure that he might let fall something worth the 
hearing. But Mr. Kittleshot was away from home, and not 
expected back for a week or more. 

The first thing he did upon his return was to seek out the 
Squire, Father Horbury, Dr. Byrse, and the Colonel, and make 
them promise to dine with him on the following night. He said 
that he had business of the greatest importance to discuss with 
them. 

It was a dinner they never forgot. He told them that his 
mind was full of a big scheme, but that it would take a long time 
to mature it. However, he wanted to put a small part of it into 
Immediate execution, and he would therefore make two 
proposals :— 

1. That he should enlarge their little church in any way they 
cared to suggest. 

2. Thatin connection with the church he should build a higher 
grade school, where special attention might be given to 
ecclesiastical music. 

He made his idea very clear. He did not want achoir-school, 
he said, though if they pressed him on the point and thought 
such an establishment would be better than what he proposed, he 
would give way. He wanted to put education in the first place, 
and he wanted that education to be of the soundest possible 
character. He would endow the place with a sum hereafter to be 
fixed. He proposed to make present provision for a hundred 
boys, but now the site was secured—and he found that there was 
no difficulty in buying more land on either side of the church— 
care would be taken to leave large spaces for possible extension. 
He wanted his friends to discuss many points on future occasions, 
for when the school was completed he wished Father Horbury, 
Mr. Ridingdale, Dr. Byrse, and Colonel Ruggerson to take the 
entire management of the thing into their own hands. 

As for the pupils, who might be either boarders or day-boys, 
he wished the preference to be given to the sons of poor gentlemen 
or professional men, and to boys who had some capacity for music. 
Though the place was not to be regarded as an orphanage, the 
fatherless or motherless were always to be considered first. 


592 The Irish Monthly. 


Mr. Kittleshot’s guests were speechless through sheer 
bewilderment. 

é“ Have I made myself clear that this establishment is to be an 
exclusively Catholic one P’’—the millionaire asked after a pause. 
“I want you to understand that, and also that as soon as the 
place is started I withdraw from the board of management 
altogether. The choosing of masters will be entirely in your 
hands, but it would please me if you selected university men as 
far as possible. I shall take care that the salaries are above the 
average. Except by one of those accidents that rarely occur, 
you cannot get a good thing without paying for it.”’ 

The Colonel was the first to speak, and there was this merit 
about the old soldier’s style that, though he was fruitful in 
objections, he was not wordy. But on this occasion he had no 
objection to offer. 

‘SA very noble scheme, eh Ridingdale ?” was all he said. 

é“ Im sure, Mr. Kittleshot,” began the Squire very slowly, 
é PTm sure you have counted the cost; but it seems to me that you 
are working on much too generous a scale, particularly as you 
have other and bigger schemes in view. You will not misunder- 
stand me, I know.” 

Mr. Kittleshot smiled. ‘‘Some men make money in order 
to leave it to others; some to spend it as they please. I belong 
to the latter class. I have only one son, and he is already rich. 
In ten years time he will be richer still. He wants nothing from 
me; at any rate, he needs nothing. I have spent comparatively 
little during the last twenty years; on the other hand, I have 
accumulated much. Surely I may enjoy the luxury of doing 
what I will with my own P” 

There was nothing for the guests to do but to offer their 
thanks and congratulations, and then, until Father Horbury 
discovered that it was rast midnight, they proceeded to go fully 
into the details of their host’s intended benefaotion. 

“They'll say I’ve turned Catholic, of course,” said Mr. 
Kittleshot as he shook hands with the priest ; “ but you know 
better than that —don’t you ?”’ 

“ Unhappily—yes,”’ said Father Horbury with a rather sad 
smile. 

é“ Now what did he mean by that P” Mr. Kittleshot asked him- 
self as the carriage drove away. ‘ What on earth can it matter 





Doings in the Dale. 593 


to him if I pay up well! Rum chaps these Papists ! ” 

The winter promised to be a mild one, and it was conceivable 
the building might proceed without a break. At any rate, three 
days after the dinner, workmen had begun to dig out the 
foundations. 

After the first excitement consequent upon hearing the true 
facts, the town became peaceful and happy. For Mr. Kittleshot 
himeelf had looked into Colpington’s and Rippell’s both, and had 
said before a number of people :— 

é“ Hope the frost will keep off! I’m just starting to build a 
school—for the Catholios, you know. Boarding and day-school. 
O no, not elementary. You call it higher grade, or some such 
nonsense—don’t you P For my part I like the good old English 
title of Grammar School. Yes, it’s to be quite free. Sons and 
orphans of poor gentlemen, you know.” 

. He said nothing about the enlargement of the Catholic chapel, 
not because he wished to make a secret of it, but merely that in 
his own mind it held a secondary place and did not seem to him a 
matter worth mentioning. The whole thing could be done for 
about four thousand pounds—Father Horbury thought much 
less. : 

But when this item of news did come out, though the trades- 
men of the town were dissenters to a man, and though the bulk 
of the Ridingdale people had not the smallest sympathy with 
Catholicism, there was very general rejoicing. Already trade, 
and work generally, had not been so good within the memory of 
any dweller in the Dale, and it was quite evident that a further 
improvement was imminent. A score or two of men were already 
at work, and more were expected daily. For Mr. Kittleshot was 
impatient, and as he was able to pay for his impatience the builders 
humoured him as much as possible. He was particularly anxious 
that a portion of the school building should be opened early in 
the following summer. 

é here is no reason why the day-school should not be started 
in May or June—perhaps earlier,” he said to the Squire. 
é“ Already Father Horbury has given me a list of lads living in 
the Dale who might take advantage of it. Some of them are 
miles away, of course; but in these days of bicyoles that is nothing. 
Then, too, the train service is not bad.” 

Mrs. Ridingdale looked at her husband. 


594 The Irwh Monthly. 


“ Yes, dear, I know what you are thinking,” he said when 
Mr. Kittleshot had left. ‘Shall you object to our boys forming 
the nucleus P”” 

é“ Most certainly not. How can you ask such a question ?” 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


THE STORY OF WILLIE MURRINGTON. 


‘¢ The spirit of my father, which I think is within me, 
beginsto mutiny against this servitude : I will no longer 
endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to 
avoid it.”— As You Like It, 


“ How would you like to be an old man’s secretary ?”’ was the 
question Mr. Kittleshot asked of the amazed Willie Murringtcp. 
é“ I don’t mean at once, but in a year or two’s time.” 

“I should like it very much, sir,” said the boy. But the 
millionaire thought he looked frightened and troubled. 

“Oh, it wouldn't, be very hard, you know, and you'd have a 
good deal of time to yourself. I must talk to the Squire about 
it. How old are you, Willie P” 

“ Not quite fourteen, sir.” 

“ Dear me! I thought you were older than that.” 

The boy certainly looked older. He had come to Ridingdale 
apale, puny-faced boy underthirteen, and during the sixteen months 
he had grown rapidly. But it seemed as though no amount of 
wholesome food, and fresh air, and cheerful society could make him 
stout and rosy. He was happy enough, it istrue,and though quieter 
than his companions there was nothing melancholy about him. 
Only sometimes when his features were in repose and he was 
quite alone, a troubled look would steal over his white face, and 
he would talk to himself in a low tone and in broken fashion as 
he walked. Occasionally the boys would tease him about this— 
accounting for such little eccentricities by reminding one another 
that Willie was a poet, and must therefore ‘ act as sich.’ 

But after a time they found that, although he pleaded guilty 
to the writing of verses and would produce them if he had reason 
to think they really wished to hear them, to call him ‘poet ” 
hurt him more than any amount of ordinary chaff. To his foster- 


lin, 








Doings tn the Dale. 595 


father he showed everything he wrote, and the Squire encouraged 
him with warm and judicious praise, and helped him with kindly 
criticism. 

Mr. Kittleshot often noticed Willie, and was as friendly 
towards him as to any other member of the family ; but onthe day 
the millionaire spoke of the secretaryship the boy wandered out 
into the park alone, talking to himself more than usual. 

“Tfheonly knew . . . ifheonlyknew .. . But 
then he does’nt. Some day, perhaps, I shall have to tell him.” 

It has already been said that Willie’s history was a sad one; 
but it was a history known to no one in the neghbourhood saving 
his foster-father and mother. To the boy himself it seemed, 
whenever he recalled it, like a bad night-mare, or a painful dream 
of the far past. 

Willie Murrington was the step-son of a large farmer and 
land-owner who lived in a remote village in the East Riding, 
many miles from Ridingdale, and not far from the Yorkshire seat 
of the Dalesworth’s. There were times when the Squire had to pay 
little business visite to his uncle, the present Lord Dalesworth. 

Seated at luncheon one day, he overheard a stray guest, a 
magistrate of the district, telling the story of a case that had come 
before him that morning at the Petty Sessions. A boy had been 
brought up charged with being upon some farm premises with the 
intention of committing a felony. The affair had been a little 
complicated in the beginning, owing to the fact that two other 
persons, a vagrant and a big fellow belonging to the village, had 
also been found upon the same premises though at a later hour. 
After hearing the evidence, however, it became clear that the boy 
had no knowledge of the other two prisoners and that his 
character was altogether above suspicion, except that now and then 
he was in the habit of running away from home. The policeman 
of the village said that the boy’s mother was dead and that the 
farmer was his step-father. It came out a little later that this 
same step-father frequently gave way to drink and that in his 
cups he was a man of great violence. 

The chairman lectured the boy upon the impropriety of sleeping 
out, and in the end fined him ten shillings and costs or fourteen 
days’ imprisonment with hard labour. 

“Of course,” said the magistrate, “ we all thought that the 
fine would immediately be paid although we knew that the step- 


- 


596 The Irish Monthly. 


father, who lives some distance off, was not present in court. As 
it was, the lad had to go back to the cells, but I took care thata 
telegram was immediately sent off to his home. Here is the reply 
I received just as I was leaving the court: ‘ Fine will not be 
paid ; let him go to gaol.’”’ 

“ And what is going to be done?”’ asked Ridingdale. 

é“ Well,” said the magistrate, “I would pay the fine myself if 
I could do it aud rosa.” 

“ ‘You think it is not too late P ” 

“ Oh, no. The prisoners will have to wait for the three o clock 
train. Not much of a service here, you know.” 

é No time to lose,” said Ridingdale looking at his watch. 

é Well, if you as a stranger would act in the matter 

“I will go at once,” the Squire decided, and making apologies 
to his host. 

He was only justin time. The prisoners had been taken out 
of their cells and were standing in a line in a sort of outer court. 
Two of them were already handcuffed together, and the constable 
was in the act of wrapping a piece of linen round the boy’s wrist 
in order to make his manacle fit. The man was a kindly sort ol 
fellow and did not seem to like the business he was engaged in. 

‘There now,” he said as the handcuff snapped with a click, 
‘¢ that’s nice and comfortable—isn’t it? Won’t hurt you like that, 
my lad, nor it won't slip of. Nay, don’t you cry. A fortnight’s 
soon over, you know.” 

The boy had kept up well until now. He had known from 
the first that his step-father would not pay the fine, and the 
prospect of going to prisou had not greatly alarmed him. He 
would not be beaten there, at any rate. But now that he found 
himself fettered to two forbidding-looking men, and realised that 
he had to walk to the station and take a rather long railway 
journey under such ignominious circumstances, he broke 
down altogether. lie was so small compared with the big burly 
fellow he was chained to that his thin hand hung suspended from 
the other’s, the white bandage making it all the more conspicuous. 

The Squire had found the sergeant who was in charge of the 
little police office, and while the small item of business was being 
transacted they could see what was going on in the yard beyond. 

‘‘ Surely,” he said to the sergeant, “it is not necessary to hand- 
cuff a small boy like that !”’ 


33 








Doings in the Dak. 597 


“ Well, air,” the sergeant replied, “what else can you do? 
That officer there was going to take the three of ’em a matter 0’ 
forty mile; how else could he do it ?”’ 

‘© T see,” said the Squire. “That's quite right.” 

“ And then, y’ know, sir, lads is more slippy than men if it 
comes to that.”’ 

é“ Yes, no doubt. But now, I suppose, the little chap can have 
his irons taken off ?” 

It was clear that the constable who had fettered the boy was 
delighted to release him, and in another second Willie Murrington 
was raising a tear-stained face to his unknown benefactor. 

The Squire hurried him away from the police-station in the 
direction of Dalesworth Park, and then little by little be learnt 
something of the boy’s story. 

His own father, a country gentleman of fair means, had died 
when he, Willie, was a little baby, and when he was three his 
mother had married the rich farmer. She had survived her 
second marriage scarcely three years, and since that time the 
step-father, always given to drink, had treated the boy with 
alternate cruelty and neglect. He had frequently slept out, he 
said, because over and over again the farmer had threatened to 
murder him. The farm servants had been kind to him or he 
would long ago have runaway. \Villie described how the house- 
keeper tried to find hiding places for him when his stepfather was 
drunk, and how frequently he had made a hole for himself among 
the straw in the barn. 

The Squire looked at the lad with compassion. 

“ And what are you going to do now, my child P”” he asked. 

é I don’t know, sir. I daren’t go home. I shall try to go to sea, 
I think, orintothe army. Do you think they would take me as a 
drummer boy, sir? ”’ 

The Squire did not hear the last question. He was thinking 
deeply. He must verify the boy’s story of course, and he must 
see this brutal step-father. In the meantime the lad must be 
cared for. He was fairly well-dressed, but looked wretchedly ill 
and harassed. 

“é Let us go up to the house,” said the Squire. “ I’m sure you're 
hungry.” 

Willie began to tell his unknown friend how kind the police 
had been to him at the lock-up. The boy had been several days 





598 The Irish Monthly. 


in the cells waiting for the petty sessions, and during that time 
the sergeant had given him food from his own table. 

A littlelater the housekeeper of Dalesworth Hall received Willie 
with open arms, and that same afternoon the Squire drove over to 
the distant farm to see the step-fathor. The man was asleep, the 
servant said, and Ridingdale proceeded to question her and the 
other servants as to the true position of things. The case was 
much worse than the boy had ventured to make it. 

“I know there'll be murder done if Willie comes home 
again,” the housekeeper said. “ He's as good a lad as ever put 
foot in shoe-leather, and why his father hates him so much I can’t 
make out. Of course he’s a bit obstinate about his religion. You 
see, sir, his mother was a papist, and Willie thinks he ought to 
take after her. Master, he always wants him to go to the 
Protestant church, but ever since he begun to be a big lad he’s 
always gone off tu the Catholics by himself. Not that Master ever 
goes to church, not he. O’ Sundays he’s alwaysin bed till dinner 
time, and I don’t think he’s set foot in any place o’ worship since 
he was married.” 

“ What education has the boy received P” asked the Squire. 

“ He’s been going regularly to the Grammar School at 
Thelvaston,” said the housekeeper, mentioning a market town two 
or three miles off. “Often and often have 1 begged Master to let 
him board there, for I knew the lad would be all right away frem 
home, but Master wouldn't hear of it. Said it would ocst too 
much.” 

The Squire listened patieutly while the woman rattled on, 
telling him all he wanted to know and a great deal more. 

“May I write a letter here?” Ridingdale asked when at 
length the housekeeper paused. ‘I suppose it is very uncertsin 
when your master will be awake ?” 

The houskeeper assured him, as she began to collect the 
writing materials, that it was most uncertain. “ And when he 
wakes up,” she added, “he won't be in a fit state to see you or 
anybody else.” 

So the Squire sat down and wrote a carefully worded letter. 

“ Your father will not take you back, Willie,” said the Squire 
the next day when he had reccived an answer from the drunken 
farmer. Ridingdale tore the brutally-worded letter into small 
pieces and threw it in the fire. 





Doings in the Dale. 599 


*‘T could not go back to him, sir, even if he would have me.” 

“Then come with me, my boy,” the Squire exclaimed laying 
his hand on the lad's shoulder. 

“O sir,” Willie sobbed, “ you caunot mean it. You are 
related to Lord Dalesworth, aren’t you? I should disgrace you 
too much. This time yesterday I had handcuffs on, and if it had 
not been for you [ should be in prison now.” 

The Squire took him by the hand and led into the park. 

“ What does all that matter, my poor child! You had done 
nothing to deserve such punishment. You shall have father and 
mother, brothers and sisters, if you will, and—listen, Willie—they 
are all of your own poor mother’s religion.” 

Then Willie wept afresh, but there was no bitterness in his 
tears. 

No wonder then that Willie Murrington loved his foster 
father and mother so tenderly. He had shown himself the most 
dutiful and obedient of sons, and it was ouly now and then when 
the memory of his past life, and particularly of the day he first saw 
the Squire of Ridingdale, came back to him that he fully realised 
its horgor or the exceeding happiness of the present. 

Mr. Kittleshot’s offer, though to be sure it belonged to the 
remote future, made Willie thoughtful, as we havo said, and he 
lost no time in speaking to the Squire. 

“ Father, ought I to tell Mr. Kittleshot about—about— 

“ About what, Willie ?”’ 

é“ Well, father, about myself. I mean—— ” 

‘No, dear. Some day, if there is any necessity, I will tell 
him; though as a matter of fuct there is nothing to tell—except 
that you were a very badly-used boy. For the present your little 
secret, such as it is, is quite safe with mother and father—isn’t it, 
old man?” 

Willie’s only reply was an affectionate hug; but he looked 
greatly relieved. 

Less than a fortnight after this, the Squire was paying one of 
his usual short visits to Lord Dalesworth. 

“ By the way,” hie lordship remarked during dinner, “I don’t 
know whether you heard of the death of your foster-son’s step- 
father P” 

The Squire had not heard of it. 

“O, yes. Not many days ago he was found dead in his bed 


600 . The Irish Monthly. 


after a drunken bout of more than ordinary length. And now 
that he’s gone, people’s tongues are loosened with a vengeance I 
fancy, you know, he must have bribed his servants right and left 
to hush up things. A perfect marvel how he escaped prosecution 
for his fiendish cruelty to that lad. I’d have taken the thing up 
myself if I’d known how bad a case it was. Didn't the boy tell 
you all about it ?” 

é“ He told mea little the day I met him here, and the house- 
keeper told me more. But it’s a subject I've never questioned 
Willie about since.” 

‘Naturally. Well, I met the parson of this scoundrel’s parish 
yesterday and found him boiling over with indignation. He'd 
been talking to some of the farm men, and they told him that over 
and over again, on bitterly oold winter nights, they had found the 
lad chained by the neck and lying in an empty dogkennel. Some- 
- times they had succeeded in undoing the padlock of the dog-coller 
that was round his throat, and carried him off to their own cottage ; 
but as far as I can make out he must occasionally have been left 
in that condition all night.” 

‘This oan’t be true ! ” the Squire exclaimed. . 

é“ Unhappily, there is no sort of doubt about it. Besides, it is 
only one of many equally cruel things. Two or three times the 
the head waggoner had found the boy hung up by the wrists toa 
staple in the wall of the barn; and on one of these occasions he 
had come upon the farmer in the very act of thrashing the lad 
with a cart whip as he hung in that position. The man himeelf 
says that he threatened to report his master to the police; but the 
parson feels quite sure the fellow was bribed not to say anything 
about it.” 

“Surely,” exclaimed the Squire, indignantly,” such things are 
not possible in a country like this!” 

“ Oh,” said Lord Dalesworth, “ I haven't told you the worst 
by any means. And I’m not going to doso. One thing, how- 
ever, may interest you :—Willie’s step-father was a promninent 
and very enthusiastic member of the Society for the F'revention of 
Cruelty to—Animals.”’ 

é That I can quite believe.” 

“Yes,” said his lordship, with great irony, “ when the history 
of the latter half of the nineteenth century comes to be written it 
will have to be put on record that in such and such a year this 








Swallows of Allah. 601 


society—a most useful one I grant, and Iam myself a supporter of 
it, Ridingdale”— 

“And so am I,” put in the Squire. 

“I know you are. Well, as I was saying: in such a year 
this society was founded, and then—I am afraid to say how many 
years afterwards, and apparently as an after-thought, it occurred 
to somebody that perhaps a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Children might be started. Really, I think the English mind is 
the oddest jumble of the idiotically sentimental and the brutally 
practical that one could find in the whole world. There’s not a 
man in the country more devoted to beasts than I am, unless, 
perhaps, it’s yourself; but, hang it all! I still retain some little 
sense of the relative value of human and animal life! ” 


Davip Bearneg, 8.J. 


(To be continued). 


SWALLOWS OF ALLAH” 


WALLOWS of Allah, unfurl your white wings ! 
Come to us, strangers, o’er the friendless sea, 
Welcomed by Islam and its chivalry, 
For bene of all your hallowed minist’rings, 
Swallows of Allah ! 


Swallows of Allah, hither wing your flight 
Over the barren and mysterious sea ; 
Where have ye nested? Whither did ye flee? 
Leaving grey shadows, and the winter’s night, 
Swallows of Allah ! 


Swallows of Alluh, whilst yo dwelt afar, 
Behind the billows of the broken sea, 
Your names made songs for Moslem minstrelsy 
Over the long chibouque and samovar, 
Swallows of Allah ! 


© The name given by the Turkish soldiers to the French Sisters of Charity. 
Vou. xxvz. No. 305 43 


602 


The Irish Monthly. 


Swallows of Allah, the dusk of Arab eyes 
Deepened, when strained across the steel-rimmed sea 
For one white feather ’gainst its ebony,— 
The pennant of response to prayers and sighs, 
Swallows of Allah ! 


Swallows of Allah, bearded men have wept, 
Waiting your advent from the silent sea, 
Maidens have pierced the minaret’s mystery, 

To watch the realms of the Frankish sept, 

Swallows of Allah ! 


Swallows of Allah, now the royal sun 
Crests the high cliffs that overhang the sea ; 
The snows are melted, and the shadows flee, 
The white flowers star the meadows, one by one, 
Swallows of Allah ! 


Swallows of Allah, bulbuls sing at night,— | 
We hear your voices from the syren sea; | 
The crescent shines above the silvered lea, | 

And all is music in the pale moonlight, 

Swallows of Allah! 


Swallows of Allah, from the high mosque’s tower, 
Waking the dreams of the too slumb’rous sea, 
Poals the muezzin’s voice of victory— 

The advent of your mercy and your power, 

Swallows of Allah ! 


Swallows of Allah, keep your faithful tryst, 
Here by the shallows of the tideless sea ; 
The Moslem shall not fail in courtesy : 
We have our Prophet; keep your gentle Christ, 
Swallows of Allah ! 


Swallows of Allah, beat with buoyant wings 
The slumbers of the too reluctant sea ; 
Come to us! Come to us! lo! we cry for ye! 

The largess of your woman’s minist’rings, 

Swallows of Allah! 


P. A. SHEEHAN. 


( 608 ) 


PRIEDIEU PAPERS. 
No. 14.—Caurisrian LIBERTY. 


OME men of genius, who pretended to throw off the yoke of 
Christ, have been unable to free themselves from the spell 
of Christ’s last Apostle. Victor Hugo ranks St. Paul among the 
twelve greatest men of all the ages. For us who believe all that St. 
Paul believed, there is a thrill in some of his magical phrases 
which have become watchwords of the Christian Church. One of 
these occurs in the fourth chapter of his epistle to the Galatians, 
where he tells us that “that Jerusalem which is above is free, 
which is our mother,” and that “‘ we are not the children of the 
bondwoman but of the free, by the freedom wherewith Christ hath 
made us free.” 

é The freedom wherewith Christ hath made us free.” What is 
that freedom? Do we yet possess it? And, if not, how are we 
tu secure for ourselves the fulness of that Christian freedom ? 

God is the author of nature as well as of grace, and it is part 
of the nature He has given to us to wish to be free, to yearn for 
liberty, to abhor slavery. Freedom is one of the watchwords of 
humanity, though, like many another word of power, it has been 
too often degraded and misapplied. Every ideal of liberty is false 
which is not founded on this truth, that man is the creature of God, 
placed on this earth for objects which do not end with this earth. 
For in this yearning after freedom and in every other yearning 
of man’s heart it is foolish, besides being impious, to think only of 
the rights of man and to ignore the rights of God, to limit our 
view to the brief hour of this present life without considering its 
bearing on the eternity which is to follow. We are creatures, 
mortal yet immortal, and by the very fact of creaturehood we 
depend on our Creator, who is our Creator by virtue of an act 
which is not past and gone, but which goes on working for ever, 
co-operating with us in all our operations, preserving and sustain- 
ing us in life and action, and so re.ewing, as it were, God’s right 
of ownership over us at every breath we draw. And moreover, as 
if we were not His already, we ‘have been bought at a great 
price ” (I. Cor. vi. 20). 








b04 The Irish Monthly. 


God forbid, then, that we should pretend to be free in the 
sonse of not being responsible for every deed and word and 
thought and feeling to God our Maker and our Redeemer. God 
alone is independent, self-sufficing. For feeble creatures like us, 
absolute independence, if conceivable, would not be freedom, but 
desolation and abandonment. Our best freedom consists in 
dependence, trustful and loving dependence, on Him who can 
never fail us either in the strength of His arm or in the love of 
His Heart. 

But not alone to the infinite and invisible Gud; our freedom 
implies subjection to our fellow-oreatures around us. The same 
Apostle who preached this grand gospel of freedom was he who 
said at a time when temporal authority was in the hands of 
rulers as unsatisfactory perhaps as any nowadays: “ Be ye subject 
to the higher powers, for he that resisteth the powers resisteth the 
ordinance of God, and they that resist purchase to themselves 
damnation.” For even in the Apostolic ages heretics arose— 
Gnostics, Nicolaites, and others—who misinterpreted that 
Christian liberty which we are considering and used it (our 
Apostle tells us elsewhere) “as a cloak for malice,” that is, 
as an excuse for disobedience to lawful authority, and even for the 
loosening of the moral law. 

And again not only to the higher powers but to all who have 
under divers claims, and for divers purposes, a right to our 
obedience. All these various degrees of subordination do nct 
conflict with true human liberty, but are helps rather to secure to 
each one his proper share thereof. For liberty is not licentious- 
ness or lawlessness or chaos, but order; and this in our fallen 
world involves obedience, mutual dependence, self-restraint, 
subjection. 

So indeed it is in ranks of creation higher and lower than our 
own. It has been truly said that it is restraint which characterizes 
the higher creature, and which betters the lower. ‘ From the 
ministering of an archangel to the labour of an insect, from the 
poising cf the planets to the gravitation of a grain of sand, the 
power and the glory of all creatures consist in their obedience, 
not in their freedom. The sun has no liberty, the dead leaf much; 
the dust of which we are composed has now no liberty, its liberty 
comes to it with its corruption.” * 


* I cannot give the namo of the writer from whom these words are taken. 


Priedieu Papers. 605 


But to go back to our subject from illustrations which do not 
make it clearer: whatever may be the case with material things, 
it is true of our spiritual nature that in this mortal life the full 
and free development of our faculties needs restraint, and, above 
all, self-restraint ; and this enters into the essence of all true and 
rational liberty, that is worthy of the dignity and solemn 
responsibilities of our human nature. 

This holds good of civil and social liberty, which however is not 
the liberty of which St. Paul speaks, although in that sense also 
it might be urged that “ Christ has made us free.” For it was 
Christianity which abolished the pagan institution of slavery ; 
which, beginning with the workshop of Joseph the Carpenter, 
exalted and consecrated rude manual labour ; and which introduced 
and fostered true modern civilization, as our present Pope has 
eloquently proved in a pastoral addressed to his flock when that 
was only the diocese of Perugia and not, as it is now, the entire 
Christian world. Yes, of this social slavery, too, and of all 
temporal wrongs and injustice the Church of Christ has always 
been the implacable enemy; and when the avarice and cruel 
pacsions of unworthy Christians renewed the horrors of slavery, 
she through her devoted sons, such as Bartholomew de las Casas 
and St. Peter Claver, took the part of the wretched slave and 
mitigated the evils which she could not prevent. And wherever 
at any time or in any form over the face of the earth slavery has 
crouched and tyranny has been rampant, it has been so in spite 
of Christianity and generally in direct opposition to the Church 
of Christ. 

The freedom, however, wherewith “ Christ has made us free,” 
regards, above all], the soul in its relations to God and eternity. 
Christ is the liberator of souls; He is the conqueror of sin and 
hell. In order to comprehend this work of liberation which He 
has wrought for us, we ought to try to realize what the world of 
which we are part would have been if it had been never redeemed ; 
and for this purpose it is not enough to consider the state of the 
pagan world before the coming of Christ. Terribly as mankind 
had fallen away actually from their primitive state, utterly as all 
flesh had corrupted its ways, hideous as were the enormities of 
paganism—any description of those evils, such as meditations and 
discourses on the benefits of the Incarnation are wont to begin 
with, furnishes a proof indeed of the necessity of the Redemption, 


606 The Irish Monthly. 


but not the full proof of all the overwhelming urgenoy of the 
liberation wrought by Him who has made us free. For ina 
certain true sense the world was already redeemed. The price, 
no doubt, had not been paid, but it had been offered and accepted. 
The Son of God had said: “ Behold I come.” The Lamb of God 
was slain from the beginning of the world. But what would the 
fallen world have become if after the fall no promise had been 
given, but sin and despair had reigned with undisputed sway— 
if there had been no faith, no hope, no charity, but only the fear- 
ful tradition of evil, and if into the night of heathen darkness 
had penetrated not one ray either from the departing twilight of 
primeval revelation or from the coming dawn of the Redemption‘ 
No, it is impossible for us to fathom the depths of that abyss 
from which Jesus drew us up, draining out for our ransom the 
last drop of His Heart’s blood upon the Cross. 

But Christ died for all. Areall free? Alas! though of the 
blood which He shed in a red torrent one drop had efficacy to 
cleanse a thousand polluted worlds, each individual soul has the 
tremendous power to stay that torreit, to set at nought that 
“‘plenteous redemption,” and, as far as regards ove soul, to 
frustrate the designs of God's meroy. ‘‘ We would have cured 
Babylon, and she is not healed’ (Jerem. LI., 9). While our 
earthly probation lasts, each of us possesses the wretched 
prerogative— wretched if it were not, when rightly used, the source 
of our glory and happiness—the sad prerogative of spurning this 
divine gift of freedom, and, even after accepting it, of going back 
to the captivity we had left—going back to our prison, not with 
the heroism of a Regulus, but with the brutal craving of the 
swine that returns to its wallowing in the mire. 

How, then, do we actually stand with relation to this freedom 
with which, as far as He is concerned, Christ has made us free? 
Are we free indeed? Can we cry out with the Psalmist, “ Our 
soul has been delivered like a bird from the net of the fowler, the 
snare is broken, and we are free?” (Psalm CXXIII.,7). Are 
the chains of sin broken for us, and are we free? For sin is the only 
real slavery to be dreaded. Mortal Sin, and above all, the habit 
of mortal sin, a life of sin—this is that worst slavery from which 
Christ came to free us. The sinner is aslave. Let a man be in 
appearance perfectly free and independent, let him parade him- 
self before men with any amount he pleases of arrogant strut and 





Priedieu Papers. 607 


stupid bravado—let him be ever so uncontrolled in his power—let 
his merest whim be the law to millions of his fellow creatures— 
let him be the sovereign ruler of an empire, or of a hundred 
empires: if with all that he be at the mercy of his disorderly 
appetites and desires, if he keep not his passions under control, 
if he be a willing and besotted sinner, he is a slave, and he is 
dooming himself to be eternally a slave—the slave of wicked 
demons and (worse) of his own wicked passions raging still in hell, 
and still unsatisfied there for ever. I 

Let us beseech of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to free 
us more and more securely and completely from this horrible 
bondage of sin. Let us shun the first beginnings of sin 
and all the occasions of sin, and on the other hand let us 
strive to form such solid habits of Christian virtue and upright 
religious conduct, as may become for us a second nature, 
anticipating, as far as may be in this life of trial and temptation, 
the sinless freedom of Heaven, the blessed and blissful necessity 
of loving and possessing our God for ever, which is in itself the 
heaven of heavens. ‘This is that true freedom which Jesus 
purchased for us by making Himself a slave. This is that true 
life which Jesus purchased for us by his death. Not till we have 
begun to live that true and endless life, not till we have reached 
“that Jerusalem which is above,” not till we nestle at the feet of 
Her who is indeed our Mother, not till our Heavenly Father has 
clasped us to His Heart, not till we are safe in Heaven, shall we 
be entirely and unchangeably free with that freedom wherewith 
Christ our Lord has made us free, 


M. R. 


( 608 ) 


OLA VIS ACROSTICA. 
A Kry to “ Dustin Acrostics.” 
No. 39. 


W* have received sundry remonstrances against our recently 

introduced arrangement of giving acrostic and solution 
in the same month. J. C. confesses that he is unable, when 
sorely puzzled by a light, to refrain from glancing at the subse- 
quent revelations. To preserve him from temptation, we revert 
to our former plan of giving the answer in the following month. 
We may throw here into the bargain an acrostic which recent 
military events suggested to an ingenious correspondent, C.T. W. 


A title strange, the mouths of men I fill ; 
Cut me in two, you find a title still. 


1. Faster than a train. 
2. Born of the brain. 
3. A cutter of grain. 

This is an up-to-date acrostic; but, going back to the chief 
olassic in acrostic literature, the little quarto of “ Dublin Acrostics,” 
here is the 39th of them, by the clever young barrister, John 
Kirby, who, if he had lived, would now be a venerable judge. 


I, 
I rang along the serried line 
When rode to war the Geraldine. 
Il. 
A well-known proverb prays thut I 
May rest in lone tranquillity. 
Ill. 
I rank with kings—though plain my state, 
Than I what monarch e’er more great? 
1. The poet sings my heavenly leap, 
2. In dear old nursery me. 
3. I doze my days in ivied keep. 
4. Not made, though brewed should be. 
EE. 


The intelligent reader does not need to be reminded that the 
third of these couplets desoribes the scho/e, made up here (as the 
number of “lights” shows us) of two words of four letters each. 
_ ~ive another hint, we may remark that the description of the 











In Memory of Mary Furlong. 609 


historical personage whose rame is here cut in two shows that Mr. 
Kirby was a disciple of Thomas Carlyle. 

No. 39, therefore, is left in its “legitimate obscurity ” till 
next month; but we may deal summarily with C. T. W. as a first 
offender. Sirdar is the title so frequently given of late to Sir 
Herbert Kitchener, now Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. The 
word that begins with 8 and ends with D is “ sound,” “idea”’ is 
born of the brain ; and, if “cutter of grain ” is not “ razor,” I 
give itup. (Twenty-four hours later, I think of “reaper,” and 
add it to the proofsheet.) 


IN MEMORY OF MARY FURLONG. 


ition before her time, as her loving friends are tempted to 

say rashly, Mary Furlong has been taken from this strange 
world of human life. Those who have been familiar with her 
name in these pages, as the writer of many sweet and graceful 
poems, will like to know something about her, now that her name 
will appear no more, now that she is only an amiable memory, 
like Attie O’Brien ard Frances Wynne and Rose Kavanagh and 
many another. 

Though she was young and only beginning the sterner work 
of life, Mary Furlong was the eldest of four sisters who had no 
brother. It was she probably who wrote the inscription on the 
tombstone beneath which she is now buried in the beautiful old 
churchyard of Tallaght, County Dublin, holy with memories of 
St. Maelruan and many another in ancient times, and in our own 
day the beloved home of the brilliant Dominican, Father Thomas 
Burke. ‘In loving memory of James Walter Furlong, of Old 
Bawn, Tallaght, who died June 3rd, 1897, aged 52 years, and of 
Mary, his wife, who died August 2ith, 1897, aged 48 years. Also 
their daughter Katie, who died July 27th, 1894, aged 22 years.” 

It will be noticed that Mrs. Furlong stayed less than three 
months after her husband; and only four years have separated 
the youngest and the eldest of their children. The three orphan 
sisters tore themselves away from their beloved Old Bawn as 
quickly as possible after their second bereavement. Mary had . 
already qualified herself as a professional nurse in Madame 





610 The Irish Monthly. 


Steevens’ Hospital, where she had won deep respect and affection, 
as she did everywhere. After her apprenticeship had becn 
completed with great success, she continued on the nursing staff 
of her Alma Mater, under the firm and wise direction of the 
Lady Superintendent, her true and constant friend, whose name 
I will not suppress in transcribing portions of a letter received 
from Miss Furlong on the last day of March, this year. There 
is no kinship, I believe, with another kind friend of the same 
name—whioh name also I do not deem it necessary to represent 
by adash. The letter was dated from the home of a patient, the 
aged father of one of the physicians of the Hospital :— 


“I wonder will you be surprised at the above address, or have you seen my 
sisters lately? I you have, they probably told you of my determination to leave 
the Hospital. I dare say you will be surprised, as I have not seen you lately ; but 
I have not done this without much deliberation and at the express desire of the 
sisters and Mr. Kolly, who, since our poor father died, has tried to act for us like 
the brotLe. we never had. The fact was that Hospital had grown too hard for 
me, even long before Papa died ; but, as long as I had Tallaght and them, 1 could 
not bear to think of changing and perhaps losing my fortnightly visit home. 
Moreover my father had a wonderful liking for Miss Kelly, and he used to please 
himself with the thought of my getting on so quickly and romainingSsenior nurse : 
and the old placo was near to Kingsbridge, so that in the rare five minutes’ wait 
for a train in he could run in and sce me. How often since he died have I pictured 
him, in ono of those unexpected visits that used to make me happy for the whole 
day after, standing at the kitchen door of my ward (he used rarely to come in 
except to see a little cripple boy, a pet of mine) or perhaps turning the corner of 
the piazza when I used to run down to meet him—always looking so strong and 
young and handsome, with his race-glass over his shoulder and his big coat on 
his arm, the very opposite of me who always looked worn and old and worried, 
uutil I saw him, when I would get so bright and delighted that he would tell me 
I looked splendid. Aud to think it was there he died ! ”’ 


She goes on to explain the motives of her resolution, the chief 
being her friends’ anxiety about her health; whereas the step she 
took was, in God’s loving providence, the occasion of her pre- 
mature but most edifying and happy death. 

In this same letter, which I hope gives some impression of her 
amiable, affectionate nature, Mary Furlong went on to promise 
that her present octogenarian patient would be the last case in 
which she would take more than a professional interest. “A 
nurse’s life (she says) is a very lonely and sad one. She must 
identify herself with the sorrows of s0 many others, and I know it 
reminds her doubly of her own.” But in spite of this stoical 
resolve she continued to take the keenest personal interest in every 








Sir John T. Gilbert?s Works. 611 


patient entrusted to her care, down to the last case in which she 
saved many lives and lost her own. 

She died, indeed, a martyr to duty. During an outbreak of 
typhus fever at Roscommon tho services of a Dublin nurse were 
required. Miss Furlong, though she chanced to have had no 
particular experience of that insidious malady, felt bound to 
accept the post of danger when it was offered to her. Her 
exertions were most successful; I think that she herself was the 
only victim. To the surprise and grief of the friends who had 
watched anxiously the course of the disease, Mary Furlong died on 
the 22nd of September, 1898. Her life to the very last was marked 
by rare unselfishness ani the most winning innocence and piety. 

The good people of the town, for whom she had more than 
risked her life, wished her remains to lie amongst them, and 
promised to erect a worthy memorial; but it was deemed right that 
she should rest among her own. May she and they rest in peace. 


NOTE TO PAGE 548. 





List of Works by Sir John T. Gilbert, LL.D., FSA. MLA, 





[More impressive than the long account of Sir John Gilbert’s career in Tug 
Iuisg Monruty, Vol. XX., page 393, or the obituaries at pp. 375 and 548 of the 
present volume, is this catalogue of his published writings, which does not 
include much learned and laborious work in Zhe Irish Quarterly Review, The 
Atheneum and the various publications of the Royal Irish Academy, etc. ] 


1. Historic Literature of Ireland, 8vo. .. 7 1851 
2. Celtic Records of Jreland, 8vo. . - 1852 
3. History of the City of Dublin, 3 vol., 8vo. .. 1854-1859 
4. Public Records of Ireland. Letters by an Irish 
Archivist, 8vo. .. 1863-1864 
5. Ancient Historical Irish Manuscripts, Bvo. - 1861 
6. History of the Viceroys of Ireland, 8vo. . 1865 
7. History of the Irish Confederation and War i in 
Ireland 1641-1649. 7 vol, 4to  .. . 1882-1891 
8. Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, 1641- 
1652. 4 vol, 4to. es ve 1879-1880 
9. Jacobite Narrative of War in Ireland. 1 vol., 4to. 1892 
10. Documents Relating to Ireland, 1795-1804. 1 vol 4to. 1893 





612 The Irish Monthly. 


11, Narrative of Maria Clementina Stuart, 1719-1735 

1 vo)., 4to. .. oe 1894 
12, “Crede Mihi”; the most ‘Ancient Register of the 

Archbishops of Dublin before the Reformation, 

A.D. 1275. I vol., 4to. . 1897 
13. An Account of Parliament House, Dublin. 1 vol. sto. 1896 


[ V.B.— The above thirteen works wore published at the Author's expense. | 


14. Calendar of the Ancient Records of Dublin, in possession 

of the Municipal Corporation of that City, a.p. 1171 

to 1730. 7 vol, 8vo., Maps and Illustrations .. 1889-1898 
15. Leabhar Na H-Uidhre. Royal Irish Academy. 


Facsimiles Manuscripts. 1 vol., fol. oe 1870 
16. Leabhar Breao, Royal Irish Academy. Facsimiles. 

Irish Manuscripts. 1 vol., fol. oe es 1876 
17. Historic and Municipal Documents of Ireland. 

Master of the Rolls Series. 1 vol., 8vo. oe 1870 
18. Chartularies of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin. Master 

of the Rolls Series. 2 vol., 8vo. oe 1884 
19. Register of the Abbey of St. Thomas, Dublin. 

Master of the Rolls Series. 1 vol., 8vo. a 1889 


20. Facsimiles of National Manuscripts of Ireland. 
Published by command of Her Majesty Queen 
Victoria. 5 vol., fol. es , 1874-1884 
21. Account of Facsimiles of National Manuscripts of 
Ireland. Published by Command of Her Majesty 
Queen Victoria. 1 vol., 8vo. ee - 1884 
22. Historical Manuscripts Commission. Reports .. 1870-1898 
Viz.: 1. Irish Corporations. 2. Marquess of Ormonde. 
8. Trinity College, Dublin. 4. Lord Emly. 
5. O’Connor Don, M.P. 6. Duke of Leinster. 
7. Marquis of Drogheda. 8. Earl of Fingal. 
9. Marchioness of Waterford. 10. Dr. Lyons, M.P. 
11. R. T. Balfour, Esq. 12. Earl of CharJemont. 
13. Charles Halliday, Esq. 14. Earl of Rosse. 
15. Earl of Leicester. Rinuccini Manuscripts at Holkham, 
Norfolk. 
16, Irish Franciscan Manuscripts, Louvain and Rome. 
17. Earl of Granard. 18. Lord Talbot de Malahide. 
19. Richard Caulfield, LL.D. 20. Viscount Gormanstowr. 
21. Manuscripts of the Irish Jesuit Fathers. 
22. General Dunne. 23. Sees of Dublin and Ossory. 
24. Sir R. O'Donnell, Bart. 











( 613 ) 


THE JEW’S TEST. 


FounpEp on Facr. 


We were down in the Ghetto of the old river-side town— 
I and the humble Jew-glazier, Nathan Abrahamson. 

I always thought of the Apostles when I looked at Nathan’s 

gentle Semitic face, with its long curling beard, its clear olive 
tints, and its great, dark soft eyes, full of an indescribable pathos 
—the “ suíferance ” that was “ the badge of all his race.” He 
was a rara avis among his fellows—a truthful, simple-hearted, 
ungrasping Hebrew. Like his Apostolic namesake—“ an 
Israelite without guile.” 

I knew him to be very poor, because of his avoidance of 
crooked methods; and I often threw odd jobs in hisway. To-day, 
it was repairing some broken lights in a tenement house of mine, 
just across from the Italian church of San Genarro. The quarter 
abounded not only with the swarthy Jews of Russia, but the 
equally dark-skinned Genoese, Neapolitans, and Sicilians. 

One of the townsmen of Columbus passed by on the other side 
as we talked. 

Everyone about there knew him to be a prosperous 
manufacturer of maccaroni. Ile was stout, oily, pompous; a 
diamond glittered on his fat finger; a thick gold chain hung 
across the front of his flowered satin waistcoat. 

He rolled past the church, thrusting his hands in his pockets 
—his hat set rakishly on one side. 

The Israelite regarded him steadily, with a curious expression 
of contempt. 

‘‘T would not trust that man with a dollar,” he said with his 
queer accent. 

‘Why not ?” asked I. 

é“ Because he doesn’t lift his hat as he passes his church,” 
was the astounding reply. 

é“ What do you know about such things, Nathan ?”’ I inquired, 
naturally enough. 

é“ A good deal. I come from a part of the old country where 
there are plenty of Roman Catholios,” said the Jew. ‘I know 
plenty about their beliefs and their ways. And it is in my blood 


614 The Irish Monthly. 


never to trust a Catholic who does not uncover to his church, or 
salute the Cross as he passes it.” 

é Salute the Cross !” Was there ever Hebrew like to this? 

The glazier saw my astonishment, and proceeded to explain. 
I give his story in plain English. 

é My grandfather,” said he, “was a rich merchant in the 
Tyrol. Jew as he was, his dearest friend was a Roman Catholic 
neighbour. With him he often had business dealings, and he 
loved and honoured him for ajust man. They were seldom apart 
—my grandfather and his friend. The neighbours called them 
David and Jonathan. 

“ One day grandfather had to go on a long journey. There 
was an investment to be made in a large estate, many miles away, 
and, in his old-fashioned, thrifty way, he must go himeelf to 
attend to it. 

“ He had noticed for some weeks past, that his Catholic friend 
seemed ill and low-spirited. A little change and exercise (thought 
he) might do him good. So he told him about the investment, 
and asked him to travel with him to the distant town. They 
had often gone on walking tours together before; and now, 
for a number of miles, the road led through a wild and thickly- 
wooded part of the country. 

“ My grandfather carried a large amount of gold in a belt 
round his waist, under his clothing. He had told his friend of 
this as they were starting on their journey about five o’clock in 
the morning. A dangerous bit of mountain which must be 
crossed by noon, made an early start necessary. It was a mild 
winter-day, but still dark. 

“‘Before day-light they had reached the first wayside crcss 
that marked their two miles from home. 

“ As they passed before it, it seemed to my grandfather that 
his companion paid no attention to the sacred image. But in the 
gray mists of the backward dawn, he could not be certain of this. 
He was sure the Catholic had muttered no prayer, nor crossed 
himself, as he knew was customary. 

“ However, they pushed on in silence. ‘I'he sun came up 
after a while in all its glory, and the hoar-frost on the ever- 
greens glittered in the forest, like a veil of white gauze besprinkled 
with diamonds. 

“Just on the outskirts of the wood, they came upon another 


The Jess Test. ” 615 


wayside cross. 

é It was broad daylight now. 

‘© My grandfather looked sharply at his companion. He was 
deadly pale. His chin was sunk upon his breast. He trudged 
past the great Crucifix without looking at it, without crossing 
himself, without lifting his hat from his head. 

é: One hand was hidden in the folds of his cloak, the other 
hung at his side, its pale fingers twitching horribly. 

“ My grandfather stopped short in the road, and exclaimed : 

‘Iam not going any further, to-day. I must return to my 
home.’ 


é“ What is the matter?’ muttered his companion in a strange, 
choked voice. 


é“ “Everything is the matter,’ said my grandfather. ‘ Bad 
luck ig on this journey. When we passed the first wayside cross, 
a while ago, my friend, you did not uncover to it. I thought 
then, that maybe the darkness had deceived me. Now, we have 
passed the second. You have made no sign, and I am sure some- 
thing is wrong. I must turn back, and start another day.’ 

é The face of his friend blazed from white to red—faded from 
red to white again. Tears gushed from his eyes, and a great sob 
shook him from head to foot. 

“TIT am discovered!’ he groaned: ‘ Take the knife!’ and he 
drew a sharp-edged steel from his bosom, and flung it at my grand- 
father’s feet. ‘I had lost my money in speculation. I had need 
of more. I meant to have murdered you for your gold before we 
reached the town. With this thought in my heart, how 
could I look on the Cross, or salute my crucified Redeemer ? 
Farewell! you will never see me more.’ 

“ With one mad ory, he turned, and plunged back into the 
darkest recesses of the forest, the echoes of his crazy shriek trailing 
after him like demon voices, till they died away in the distance. 

“ And that night, beside the fire in our great old-fashioned 
kitchen, my grandfather gave us all this solemn warning :— 
‘ Never trust a Roman Catholic who does not salute the Cross, or 
lift his hat when passing before his church.’ ” 

Eveanor ©. Donne .ty. 





( 616 ) 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


1. St. Joseph of Jesus and Mary. Priedieu Papers in hts Pratse. By 
the Rev. Matthew Russell, 8.J. (Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son). 

We give this new book the advantage of the first place among our 
notices for this month, as in these pages it cannot be criticised, and it 
is still too new for criticisms that might be quoted from other quarters. 
It is a prose companion to “ St. Joseph's Anthology” of last year, 
but it differs from it in being mainly original, not a compilation. A 
Cork priest wrote to us lately concerning hymns, ‘‘especially about 
St. Joseph to whom our people have a great devotion.” We 
hope they will prove their devotion bv favouring this newest book in 
his honour. May history repeat itself in a parallel case for the two 
straw hats commemorated in the Preface. Prose is much more 
popular than verse ; and this book is prose. 

2. The Duenna of a Genius. By M. E. Francis. (London and New 
York: Harper Brothers). 

The paper wrapper, which protects the pleasant binding of this 
most readably printed novel, lets us know that ‘‘ M. E. Francis” isin 
reality Mrs. Mary Blundell— which explains the initials “ M. B.” 
appended to the Dedication to Paderewski. This dedication is appro- 
priate to a musical story which names every one of its nineteen chapters 
from a musical term. "The Duenna of a Genius” is perhaps the very 
brightest of Mrs. Bluniell’s bright stories which already form a long 
series. Beside a vast number of uncollected short stories, she has 
given us “In a North Country Village,” (which Zhe Pall Alall Gazette 
calls ““a book for laughter and for tears, a book worthy to stand 
side by side with ‘Cranford’”)—‘'A Daughter of the Soil,’ 
‘ Whither ?” ‘‘ Frieze and Fustian,’’ ‘‘ Among the Untrodden Ways,” 
‘‘Maime o’ the Corner,” “ ‘Ihe Story of Dan,” and no doubt some 
others. All these, besides their literary charm and vivacity, their 
genial humour and their self-restrained pathos, are perfectly 
innocent and can leave nothing but wholesome impressions in the 
inind. This new book is a love-story pure and simple (in two senses 
of that phrase) worked out most ingeniously and gracefully through an 
entertaining concatenation of difficulties to a happy ending for both 
the Duenna and the Genius. It is thoroughly delightful. 

3. Clerical Studies. By the Very Rev. J B. Hogan, &.S, D.D. 
(Boston: Marlier, Callanan and Co.) 

We hope that this work will have a very extensive circulation 
amongst the priests of Ireland. The author, Dr. Hogan, is the 
Sulpician Father so well known for many years in Paris. For some 








Notes on New Books. 617 


years he has been President of St. John’s Seminary, Brighton, 
Massachusetts. The present work, which isa fine octavo of some 
five hundred pages, has already received very wide and warm 
appreciation while running through the admirably conducted American 
Eeclestastical Review. Separate chapters discuss in a calm and lucid 
style the methods and objects of a priest’s study of the natural 
sciences, philosophy, apologetics, dogmatic and moral theology, 
church history, the Bible, and the Fathers of the Church. ‘This 
extended survey required in Dr. Hogan practical familiarity with 
many distinct lines of professional study and a thorough acquaintance 
with many branches of ecclesiastical literature. The learned Sulpician, 
whom France and America owe to Ireland, has fulfilled his great 
plan with conspicuous success. The serious and practical study of 
his book will help, please God, to dignify many a young priestly life. 

4. Sonnets and Epigrams on Sacred Subjects. By the Rev. T. E. 
Bridgett, of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. 
(London: Burns and Oates, Ltd.) 

This dainty volume opens with this dedication : ‘‘ To Blessed Thomas 
More, Poet, Epigrammatist, and Devout Contemplative, as well as 
Martyr, this little book is offered by aloving client.” A loving client 
of Sir Thomas More Father Bridgett has indeed proved himself; and 
he seems to have caught from his patron a certain cheerful quaintness 
and bonkommie which find suitable expression in sacred epigram. 
But there are here many poems which go beyond the length and the 
scope of sonnet or epigram; for instance the last two, the ‘ Golden 
Word” from Brother Giles, and ‘‘Thoughts in a Crowd,’’ which 
appeared long ago in our own pages. No thoughtful reader can 
fail to set a very high value on this modest volume both as literature 
and as the aliment of piety. Many a striking meditation is condensed 
into a few lines. Very many will derive great intellectual and 
- spiritual profit from the study of these “ sonnets and epigrams.” 

5. Jerome Savonarola. A Sketch. By the Rev. J. L. O'Neill, O.P. 
(Boston: Marlier, Callanan and Co.) 

May 28rd, 1898, was the fourth centenary of the death of the 
famous Italian Dominican, Savonarola. This date has been the 
occasion of large additions to the vast literature which treats of the 
character and career of this extraordinary man. Elaborate discussions 
are still going on in Zhe Tablet and several foreign journals which are 
sure to be summarised in more than one new book on the subject. An 
American member of his illustrious order has issued an extremely 
interesting volume of two hundred and thirty pages which makes 
excellent use of all the old and new materials. There are several 
beautifully executed illustrations. The minute bibliography which 

Vou. xxvi. No, 305. 44 





618- The Irish Monthly. 


fills the last pages gives a careful estimate of some fifty works 
concerning Father O’Neill’s hero. The Irish American Father has 
fulfilled very successfully his task of fraternal piety. This new Boston 
firm of Catholic publishers to whom we have before alluded have 
brought out the work with a good deal of quiet and solid elegance. 

6. Messrs. Burns and Oates have published in a shilling pamphlet 
a second series of ‘‘Oxford Conferences’? which Father Joseph 
Rickaby, 8.J., gave during the Lent Term of 1898. Each of these 
eight conferences is very short, but very sugyestive, and aimed 
directly at the difficulties that may occur to an educated Catholic in 
modern surroundings. The name of John Henry Newman is still a 
sort of consecration for Oxford, and these ‘‘ Oxford Conferences ” refer 
frequently to his principles, especially as enforced in the magnificent 
series of lectures which he delivered in the Rotunda, Dublin. Some 
portions of that course represent the consummate flower of that 
marvellous mind—for which only the narroweat prejudice could look 
back to his ‘‘ Parochial Sermons.” 

7. St. Vincent de Paul. By Emmanuel de Broglie. (London: 
Duckworth and Co., 8 Henrietta Street.) 

Prince de Broglie’s extremely fresh and interesting Life of St. 
Vincent, the Founder of the Congregation of the Mission and of the 
Sisters of Charity, is the third of a series of Saints’ lives which Messrs. 
Duckworth are publishing. They are translated from the French, are 
very unconventional in their tone and diction, and are each introduced 
in an able and suggestive preface by Father George Tyrrell, SJ. 
His preface to the Life of St. Vincent describes him as almost 
the originator of the modern organization of charitable works, 
and discusses his position with regard to the very difficult 
problems of public and private charity. The translation of this new 
biography has been made very skilfully by Mrs. Vartridge. The 
reader passes on through its pleasant pages without ever being re- - 
minded that itis atranslation. It will make many readers acquainted 
with the details of the glorious work done by one of the greatest of 
modern saints, dear to so many inside and outside the church of which 
he was a holy priest. 

The fourth volume of this series is the Life of St. Clotilda, which 
Mrs. Virginia Crawford has translated from the French of M. Kurth, 
Professor at the University at Litge. This biography belongs to quite 
a different class of work from the preceding. Professor 
Godefroi Kurth is a specialist in that period of French history, being 
the author of Histoire Poétique dee Mérovingtens, and his work differs 
from the ordinary accounts of the Saint in more important particulars 
than the form of her name. The dramatic episodes which are 
excluded as legendary aditions to the real story are discussed in an 





Notes on New Books. 619 


appendix. The preacher who may be called upon to advocate the 
claims of St. Monica’s Home, Belvidere Place, Dublin, can cite the 
authority of this excellent French writer. ‘‘ Christianity is the only 
religion that has glorified the widow and has raised her state almost 
to the height of a dignity in the communion of the faithful. Apart 
from the exaltation of virginity, nothing in the Church has tended 
more to the elevation of the female sex than the honour paid to widow- 
hood, which has become, so to speak, a new school of Christian per- 
fection and almost a religious order. Count, if you can, the vast number 
of chaste and touching faces which Christian widowhood has led to the 
gates of heaven—faces lit up by the resigned melancholy of a smile 
too tender to be mournful, and which, if it still retains the memory of 
this world’s bitterness, reflects only the beauty of things eternal.” 

8. The ‘‘ Fate of the Children of Uisneach ” has been published by 
M. H. Gill and Son, for the Society for the Preservation of the Irish 
Language, which had already published the ‘‘ Fate of the Children of 
Lar,” and the “ Fate of the Children of Tuireann.’”’ Of these three 
‘‘Sorrowsof Story-telling ” the favourite one is contained in the present 
volume. The Irish text occupies forty-five pages, and is followed by 
an English translation, and notes on the text and names of places and 
persons. A minute and carefal glossary fills forty pages. No editor's 
name is given, but this very complete edition of this old Celtic classic 
is the result of the combined efforts of several members of the Council 
of the Society. It is admirably produced in every respect. 

9. Two Little Girls in Green, a Story of the Irish Land League. By 
J. J. Moran, author of ‘' Irish Stew,”’ ete. 

The title-page of this book is probably the first title-page to 
suppress altogether the publisher’s name, but we learn elsewhere it 
is published by Moran and Oo., of Aberdeen. It is pleasantly brought 
out, but as books go nowadays, it seems rather dear at six shillings. 
It is an interesting story written from the extreme popular point of 
view and gives a very vivid idea of the feelings of the people during 
the hottest years of the Land Agitation. There is at least one 
amiable Englishman who sees justice done to the tenants with whom 
he is concerned ; and who at the end of the story would no doubt 
quote with earnestness Thomas D’Arcy M‘Gee’s song: 

‘¢ I would not give my Irish wife 
For all the gold of the Saxon land ; 


I would not give my Irish wife 
For the Queen of France’s hand.” 


Mr. Moran has a clear and pleasant style, and this seems to be 
the most careful piece of work that we have had from him yet. 


19, Messrs. M. H. Gill and Son have just issued a fifth edition of 
‘ Directorium Sacerdotale, a Guide for Priests in their public and 





620 The Irish Monthly. 


private life,” by Father Benedict Valuy, &.J., with an Appendix for 
the use of Seminarists. This edition has been thoroughly revised by 
the translator, who died before it was issued from the press; and it has 
also been carefully examined by a learned Irish priest. It is one of 
the fruits of the very painstaking zeal of the late Rev. William H. 
Eyre, 8.J , who suppressed his name in all the successive editions. 
Indeed the work as it stands is more his than Father Valuy’s. The 
Appendix which he has added is more than half the book, and probably 
the most useful, certainly the most interesting half. There is one 
portion of it on which Father Eyre expended immense care and 
labour—the list of books suitable for a priest's library, relating to 
theology, the devout life, church history, secular history, science, 
art, and literature. There are few books that a young priest will find 
more useful and entertaining than this compact volume of 500 pages, 
the net price of which is 4s. 6d. 

11. The Ladies of Llangollen. By Charles Penruddocke. (Llangollen: 
Hugh Jones. ) 

This curious brochure is printed and illustrated with a neatness 
and finish that reflect great credit on the press of a small Wolsh 
town. The “Ladies” are Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah 
Ponsonby, who lived together some fifty years ago at Plas Newydd 
in the Vale of Llangollen, under circumstances which attracted mach 
notice in the early part of this century. Mr. Penruddocke weaves 
together a good many interesting details, chiefly genealogy and gossip. 
Mr. W. T. Stead in a recent number of the ‘‘ Review of Reviews ” 
gave an account of the Irish Rebellion, which Mr. Penruddocke would 
do well to study, for heis childishly ignorant of history, and his dates 
are all awry. He ought also to mend the slipshod and ungrammation| 
sentences which occur pretty frequently. Is it not absurd to say that 
“the great novelist Charles Lever, in writing of the attachment cf 
Irish servants, founded the character of Mickey Free and Corney 
Delany on that of the faithful Mary Carroll ??’—Mary Carroll, an old 
woman, who died when Lever waa three years old and had no points 
of resemblance to Mickey Free. I hope she died in the faith in which 
she was born. 

12. Messrs. M. H. Gill and Son have brought out with special 
care a very beautiful memorial of “ The Gartan Festival,” a record of 
the Celebration held at Gartan, on the 9th June, 1897, the thirteenth 
centennial of St. Columba. The Very Rev. Edward Maguire, D.D., 
has compiled this memorial with admirable skill. The introductory 
portion reminds the reader of the most interesting features of Saint 
Columba’s character and carecr, and this, and indeed almost every 
page of the book, is illustrated in a really exquisite manner, such as, 

" lately, could only be found in the best American Magazines— 





Notes on New Books. 621 


pictures of the most striking scenes of Donegal, and portraits of the 
dignitaries who took part in these celebrations. Addresses and poems 
in English and Irish follow alternately. The Celtic type is particularly 
beautiful. Irish readgrs everywhere, and especially in Donegal, 
should prize this delightful memorial of the Thirteenth Centenary 
of Saint Columbkille. 

13. We think it our duty to express again our admiration for the 
work done by the American Catholic Historical Society of 
Philadelphia. The September number of the “ Records ” which it 
publishes quarterly is most valuable and interesting even to 
readers thousands of miles away; but to American Catholics, 
and especially to those who may have occasion to study the history of 
the Church in the United States, these ‘Records’ are of 
priceless value. The first paper is an admirable sketch of a great 
Catholic Scientist and Scholar, Dr. Samuel Haldeman, to which is 
prefixed a striking and evidently life-like portrait. This is followed 
by Dr. Lambing on the history of Catholicity in Pittsburg, and by 
further extracts from the diary of the Rev. Patrick Kenny. A 
selection is given from the “ correspondence of Matthew Carey, 
writer, printer and publisher,” who was born in Dublin in 1760, 
edited the Freeman’s Journal in 1783, and went in the following year to 
America, where he served the Catholic cause strenuously by writing 
and publishing. There are excellent portraits of him anid many 
others including six bishops, one of them being Dr. Michael O'Connor: 
who resigned the See of Pittsburg aud spent the last twelve years of 
his life as a Jesuit. 

14. Mw Testament Studies. The Principal Events in the Life of Our 
Lord. By Right Rev. Mgr. Thomas J. Conaty, D.D., Rector of the 
Catholic University, Washington. (New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: 
Benziger Brothers). 

Archbishop Keane’s successor in the Rectorship of the Catholic 
University of the United States dedicates this volume “to the ' 
children of the New Testament classes, who were the pride and joy of 
his parochial life during his later years as pastor of the Sacred 
Heart Church, Worcester, Massachusetts.” The biblical instructions 
which he thus gave to the lambs of his flock were afterwards 
published in the form of leaflets which were received with 
much favuur by priests and by teachers; and they are now 
issued in the form of a complete manual, consisting of 214 
lessons. The book is particularly well printed, has many good 
illustrations and three very useful maps. The Bible Dictionary at the 
end gives a one-line account of all the places and persons mentioned 
in the volume. But more important than “ New Testament Studies ”’ 
is the New Testament itself. It can be had now in several cheap, 


622 The Irish Monthly 


large-type editions, and there ought to be a well-used copy in every 
household. The abuses of Rible-reading, the absurd heresy of the 
self-interpreting all-sufficiency of the Bible—all the more absurd 
when we remember how the Bible was writtgn and how it has come 
down to us, and specially absurd when we think of the state of things 
that prevailed before the discovery of printing—the extravagances of 
Heresy have been taken as an excuse for neglecting the study of the 
sacred volume on which Catholic commentators and theologians have 
expended so much labour, which the Church hus preserved and 
expounded with such loving care, and of which she binds her priests 
under pain of grievous sin to read so large a portion day after day 
through all their priestly lives. 

15 The Green Cockade. A Tale of Ulster sn 98. By Mrs. M. T. Pender. 
(Dublin: Sealy, Bryers and Walker. London: Downey and Co.) 

Mrs. Pender is an experienced story-teller, and her plots have 
plenty of striking incidentsin them. Her styleis clear and animated, 
if a little commonplace. Her new six shilling volume is an addition 
to the literature of the first centenary of the Irish Rebellion; and it 
consists of three hundred and eighty large and compact pages, which, 
printed in the usual style, would fill the old orthodox three volumes. 
Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Henry Joy McCracken, Putnam M'‘Cabe, and 
other real persons figure in the story, which, however, is almost 
wholly fictitious. We cannot tell what degree of fidelity to fact Mra. 
Pender has ained at in the details of her story. She certainly makes 
no attempt at impartiality,and she might with advantage have softened 
the dark shades in some parts of her picture —might have mitigated the 
ruffianism of some persons who were on the wrong side. In spite of its 
historical setting, Mrs. Pender contrives to make her story end happily. 

16. Striving after Perfection. A Treatise addressed especially to 
Religtous, Originally written in Latin by the Rev. Joseph Banna, 8.J. 
(New York, Cincinnati and Chicago: Benziger bros.) 

Gross carclessness has been displayed by some one in passing this 
work through the press. On the title-page and on the back of the 
volume the author is called Banna; whereas his name is Bayma. 
Has this translation been issued under the auspices of the society to 
which the author belonged ? Surely, any one who knew him could 
not have reprinted his work without prefixing some brief account of 
so gifted a man. About the middle of the century a little spiritual 
treatise in Latin was published with the title De S/udio Perfectionis 
excitando, augendo, conservando: Libri Tres. In the German reprint 
which we first saw, it was attributed to the vonerable General of the 
Society, Father Roothaan, whereas it was written by a very young 
Jesuit not yet a priest. The disturbances on the Continent drove 
Wather Bayma to England, where he taught Philosophy with great 








Notes on New Books. 623 


distinction at Stonyhurst. After some years he was sent to California 
and taught in the College of Santa Clara. He was a man of great 
brilliancy and versatility, equally at home in Philosophy, Mathematics, 
and Music. He died in San Francisco a few years ago. The late Father 
Thomas Murphy, 8.J., who laboured chiefly in Liverpool, published 
some thirty years ago, through James Duffy of Dublin, a translation 
of Father Bayma’s spiritual treatise. This translation has long been 
out of print. Has it now been reproduced in America and attributed 
to a supposititious Father Banna? We have not the original or the 
first translation at hand. We are inclined to think that this is a new 
translation anda good one. The present edition is very fincly printed 
and forms a handsome volume, quite a contrast to the original 
duodecimo. All this makes us regret the more the unfortunate 
blunder about the Author’s name, which must not be perpetuated in 
Benzigers’ catalogues. Indeed a slip ought to be inserted in every 
copy, making amends for the mistake. 

17. Life of St. Juliana Falcontert, Foundress of the Mantellate or 
Religtous of the Third Order of Servites, Edited by the Rev. F. 
Soulier. (London: Burns and Oates). 

The Sisters of the Third Order of Servites in London have compiled 
this complete and beautiful biography of their sainted foundress, 
alony with very edifying notices of several of the early Sisters. The 
Oratory Life of St. Juliana was not considered satisfactory, and, 
besides, it is now out of print. The present volume extends to 300 
pages. It contains portraits of the Saint and of the Foundress of the 
English branch of her Order. Some will consider the design on th: 
cover too glaring. 

18. The Siructure of Life. By Mrs. W. A. Burke. (London and 
Leawington: Art and Book Company). 

This is a companion volume to “ The Value of Life” by the same 
Author, to which we gave very emphatic praise at the time of its 
appearance last year. It resembles it in its form and substance ; con- 
sisting of eleven chapters of pithy reflections on home life, daily 
surroundings, physical, mental, and moral growth, preparation of 
character, trials, illness, pain, sorrow, reading, etc. Very striking 
thoughts from men of all times are strung together very deftly, 
somewhat after the manner of Kenelm Digby; but the author’s own 
reflections are quite worthy of this good company. The writers 
quoted are very various: St. Augustine (we take them as they occur 
in consecutive pager) Montaigne, Father Joseph Farrell (‘‘ Lectures 
of a Certain Professor ”), Archbishop Ullathorne, Tennyson, Faber, 
Newman, Marcus Aurelius, Emerson, Smiles, Rochefoucauld, Farrar, 
Blackie, Addison, Adelaide Proctor, Sir John Lubbock, Garfield and 
Cardinal Manning—to stop at page 40 out of 240 pages. This a 


624 The Irish Monthly. 


pleasant book is full of stimulating thought. It is introduced by the 
Rev. William Barry, D.D., in a long preface which seems to us a 
particularly brilliant sample of h‘s vivid, incisive style. 

19. ‘‘Our Lady and the Eucharist”’ is an exquisite booklet compiled 
from Father Faber’s writings by the Rev. John Fitzpatrick, O.M I., 
to whom we owe “Father Faber’s May Book” and his own 
very beautiful ‘Virgo Preedicanda.” It is daintily produced by 
Washbourne of 18 Paternoster Row—a firm which appears for the 
first time in the slight!y altered form of “ R.and T. Washbourne ” on 
the title-page of the second edition of the “Life of St. Anthony of 
Padua” along with the names of three Capuchin Fathers. It is the 
most popular account of this most popular saint. ‘Another book that 
comes under our notice for the second time is of a very different kind 
but singularly excellent ¢f its kind—‘“ Bundoran and its Neighbour- 
hood: a Guide and Descriptive Handbook ” (Dublin: Sealy, Bryecs, 
aud Walker). ‘T. C. C.—who ought to give his name in full —has 
shown wonderful diligence and very wide and accurate knowledge. 
While it seems merely a richly illustrated guide-book, it is crammed 
with historical and antiquarian lore. 

20. ‘‘ Our Lady of the Rosary ” by Father Wilfrid Lescher, O.P. 
(Dublin: James Duffy,) was intended to be in time for the Rosary 
Month of October, but, as often happens in such cases, it was just in 
time to be late. But the Rosary is in season all the year round. 
Father Lescher’s little book will help the intelligent use of this 
favourite devotion. 

Ending these book-notes on the feast of St. John Cantius, we 
cannot refrain from expressing our admiration of the very skilful 
version of his three Breviary hymns contributed to the Octuber 
Number of Zhe American Ecclesiastical Review by the Rev. Hugh T. 
Henry of Overbrook Seminary. The Editor’s correspondence shows 
incidentally how much the brilliant serial, ‘‘My New Curate,”’ has 
caught the fancy of his readers. Of course we shall soon have it as a 
separate volume. 

On our own side of the Atlantic two novels of exceptional worth 
and interest are hastening through the press; but it might only cause 
useless trouble to booksellers and others if we named the authors 
now. 








DECEMBER, 1808. 





A CHRISTMAS ELOPEMENT. 


é6 


E may expect you, then ?” 

“ Certainly, certainly ; yes, yes. Thanks.” There was 
a touch of impatience in the Rector of Pidswell’s brother-in-law’s 
voice. 

“ On the Eve, then? You will let us know your train? 
Katherine will be very pleased.” The Rector of Pidswell was 
buttoning himself into his overcoat as he spoke. 

‘Certainly, certainly. Yes, yes.” 

“ Goodbye, then. God bless you, my dear Granton.” Mr. 
Herrick held out a worsted-gloved hand. 

‘‘Goodbye.” Colonel Granton gave his footstool a kick that 
sent it flying under the table, as he got up from his chair. 

“Oh, by the way,” the Rector turned at the door. “I 
had nearly forgotten.” He pulled out a small memorandum 
book. ‘ Katherine thought that, perhaps, you would not. mind 
bringing down the fish ? Groves, Bond Street, the old place, you 
know.” 

‘Certainly, certainly. Yes, yes, of course.’ There was 
irritation now in Colonel Granton’s tones. 

“ Well, goodbye, again.” 

Colonel Granton’s answer was a grunt. 

“ Oh, Granton, I forgot,” the Rector, who had been half-way 
down stairs, popped his head in at the door again. ‘ Ethelwyn 
will be with us. Katherine—hem— Katherine thought you might 
like to know.” 

“Very kind of Katherine, I am sure,” the Colonel said drily ; 











626 The Irish Monthly 


then, seeing that something more in the way of an answer was 
expected, “ Grown-up, I suppose? The New Woman, and all 
that.” 

“I am happy to say,” the Rector spoke with slow precision, 
“that my wife’s niece is, in every respect, a pleasing and modest 
young woman.” 

“One for the New Woman,” the Colonel said with a dry 
chuckle. ‘ Well, give Katherine my love, and my best respects 
to Miss Ethelwyn, if she is good enough to remember me.” 

“ Ethelwyn remembers all her old friends. Ethelwyn is, Í 
repeat it, without prejudice, a most pleasing young person.” Mr. 
Herrick waited fora moment, perhaps for an answer but it did not 
come, and he went cn: “ Ethelwyn, my dear, Granton reminds me 
of what her aunt was at her age.” 

“ Yes P” 

“ She bears also,” Mr. Herrick cleared his throat, “a great, I 
may say, a very great resemblance to— ” the Rector hesitated— 
“poor Emilia.” 

“To her mother? Naturally, I should say.” Colonel 
Granton’s face had flushed, and he walked to the window. 

“ Naturally, as you observe,” the Rector said, he had taken 
off a glove, and was fitting on the clumsy fingers again with 
care. 

é“ You hear of her?’ Colonel Granton stared steadily out of 
the window as he asked the question. 

é“ From time to time—yes, since you ask it, my dear Granton, 
we do hear of her from time to time—poor thing.” The “poor 
thing ” seemed to come as an after-thought and due to the 
situation. | 

‘Perhaps not so very poor,” the Colonel returned with 
satire. 

“ My dear Granton,” Mr. Herrick spoke in his most clerical 
tones, and emphasized each word with a long forefinger, “in my 
experience, and, I may say as a pastor, it is a wide one, sin bears 
its own fruit.” 

“If you call it a sin.” Colonel Granton shrugged his 
shoulders. 

“ My dear Granton, the deception ! The 


“ Well, well,” the Colonel interrupted sharply, “ what does it 
matter now-a-days P”’ 


33 
e 








A Christmas Elopement. 627 


“é My dear Granton,” the Rector began again, but at that | 
moment his eye fell on the olock, “bless me, bless me, twelve ' 
o’clock! Twelve o’clock. I shall miss my train, and we havea 
vestry meeting to-night; and Katherine—Katherine will be | 
anxious. Good-bye, Granton, good-bye.” | 

“é Good-bye,”’ Colonel Granton said grimly. He listened till 
he heard the street door shut, and then, with a sigh of relief, 
seated himself again in his arm-chair. Presently, bending 
towards his writing-table, he unlocked a drawer, took out a cheque- 
book, and went with deliberation through its entries. ‘£150,’ 
he said, at last, “£150 in three months. Poor Emilia has not 
done so badly after all!” Then he drew from his pocket a letter 
received that morning, and read it over for the second time— 





** Dear, kind friend, once again, and in great distress, I venture to appeal to 
your generosity. My dear husband has sprained his wrist, and I need not tell you 
what that means for us, no salary, a substitute at St. Mark’s (entre nous, our Vicar 
18 very mean), starvation in short! In this extremity I have thought of the friend 
who—little as we deserve his generous aid —has never failed us in our hour of need. 
Ten pounds at once, dear friend, would save us. 


“ Your ever grateful, 
“EE. Wrrtsuigs.”’ 


“ Well, as a wife, she would have been more expensive,” the 
Colonel said to himself after consideration, and regretted there 
was no one but himself to appreciate the satire, But it was 
Christmas-tide, or nearly so; he could afford to be generous, and 
he owed the organist a debt of gratitude. He filled in a cheque 
for twenty pounds, crossed it, wrote “with Colonel Granton’s 
compliments ” on a sheet of paper, enclosed both in an envelope, 
and addressed it to 

Mrs. Epwarp WILTSHIRE, 
3 Hart Place, 
Camberwell, 
and rang for his man to take it to the post. 

In theory, Colonel Granton detested woman, her ways and 
wiles; as a matter of fact he worshipped at her feet, and was as 
wax in her hands. 

At thirty he had married the Rector of Pidswell’s sister for no 
other reason than that he had seen tears in her eyes at the 
moment of making his adieux after a stay at the Rectory. 

At thirty-five—a twelvemonth after his wife’s death—he had a] 


628 The Irish Montily. 


engaged himself to Mrs. Herrick’s sister, because, in a sudden 
burst of confidence that lady had bewailed her widowhood, and 
the poverty of herself and her small daughter. 

When, on the eve of the marriage, Mrs. Percival eloped with 
the Pidswell organist (leaving a note—orthodox fashion—on her 
dressing-table, explaining that from the moment she had seen 
Edwin [the organist] she felt he was her fate, and imploring her 
sister to be good to her child) Colonel Granton had contented himself 
—not with pursuing the runaway couple, but with quoting a line or 
two from Byron tothe Rector—giving that gentleman occasion to 
explain that their author was a poet whose works he never read— 
and presenting Mrs. Herrick with a cheque for £500 to be used 
for the benefit of the runaways, and had then betaken himself 
back to town and contented bachelor life. 

Since the June morning—the morning that should have pre- 
faced his wedding day—when, the friend who was to have been 
best man seated in solemn silence by his side, he had driven away 
from the Rectory, Colonel Granton had not seen Pidswell again; 
and turning to the fire, after he had despatched his cheque, he 
wished, with all his heart, that he had had presence of mind to 
give a decided ‘“ No ” to his brother-in-law’s invitation. 

Christmas at the Rectory long ago had been part of the 
natural course of events. He counted distant kinship with both 
husband and wife, and the Herricks were as olanny as any Scotch 
folk. But, even in the distant days, before his marriage with 
Miss Herrick, the Colonel had rebelled—in secret—against the 
Rector’s wife’s commissions—the fish, with its slimy oozy smell, 
the brown-paper parcels from the stores, the etceteras that, as the 
24th drew near, poured in, labelled ‘‘ with care,” or in letters 
half-inch long, “do not crush.” 

And all this was to begin again! Why had he not gone off 
to the Riviera? Why had he not accepted an old brother officer’s 
invitation to run down to his place in Wales? Why—— had he 
escaped the influenza? But, desperate as he was, he never thought 
of breaking his word. To Pidswell he had promised to go, and, 
if alive, to Pidswell he would go. 

Time ran on, and Christmas Eve found the Colonel at the 
Paddington Station, with his man in attendance to hand over the 


objectionable basket of fish to the guard, and arrange the different 
parcels on the rack. 


A Christmas Elopement. 629 


The Rector’s wife had regretted, in one of her many notes, 
that she could not receive Simms. “Town servants put absurd 
ideas into their country brethren’s heads, and made them dis- 
contented.” At least that was her experience; and James— 
James was the Rector’s coachman, gardener, and factotum—was 
quite handy and made an excellent valet as dear Frederick—the 
Colonel’s name was Frederick—would find. 

Colonel Granton was not at all dependent on his valet, but 
Mrs. Herrick’s long-winded note had put him in a state of 
irritation. Be valeted by the Rectory man who smelt of the 
stable—never ! 

At the market town where the journey came to an end, the 
station-master recognised the Colonel at once. ‘It’s a long time 
since we have seen you down here, sir,” he said, as he touched 
his hat, condescending to take the Colonel’s packages himself ; 
then, remembering the circumstances of the Colonel’s last 
departure, he grew red in the face, and mumbled what might 
have been meant as an apology, as he led the way to the Pidswell 
Rectory pony carriage. 

James Twiss, the Rector’s man of all work (and the Colonel’s 
future valet), had his word of greeting too, “ glad to see you back, 
sir, after all these years,” then he, too pulled himself up short, 
and pretended to find something wrong with the harness. 

The Colonel, who had always had a fine contempt for James 
Twiss, as a slovenly fellow, and had detected at once a pair of 
soiled garden trougers under the long badly-fitting drab coat, 
returned a dry nod. 

“ Beg pardon, sir, but we have to pick up a few odds and ends 
for the mistress in the town,” the man said, presently, as the old 
mare trotted along the all but empty high street of the little town, 
and he pulled up at a butcher’s shop. 

Portmanteau, gun-case, parcels, basket of fish, had already left 
but little room for the Colonel’s legs, and as a murderous-looking 
white-sheeted bundle was handed in, he was about (with an 
expression of disgust) to announce his intention of walking the 
remainder of the way, when the Rector’s factotum spoke again. 

“ Beg pardon, sir, but we have to stop for Miss Ethelwyn at 
the Library.” 

A sense of amusement, as well as wonder, as to where, and 
how, Miss Ethelwyn was to be stored among the packages made 





630 The Irish Monthly. 


the Colonel resume his seat, and the old mare went lumbering on. 

At the Stationer’s a girl was standing at the door. No 
occasion to ask if she was Mrs, Wiltshire’s (once Mrs. Percival’s) 
daughter. There was the same fair complexion, flaxen hair, the 
droop at the corners of the mouth, but the voice had the prim 
precision of the Rector’s, and Colonel Granton could scarcely 
restrain a smile as she greeted him, flushing with shyness as she did 
go; she hoped the journey had not fatigued him. 

“Three hours? I am not quite such an old man as that, Miss 
Percival.” 

If the girl’s face had been pink before, it grew red now. 
é“ [—I beg your pardon,” she looked ready to cry. 

Twiss, who had scrambled down from his seat, now handed his 
young mistress the reins, and proceeded to hoist himself up on a 
small seat, the Colonel had not before noticed at the back of the 
phaeton, and with a touch of the whip, the mare again started. 

Mr. and Mrs. Herrick are well, I hope?” the Colonel asked. 

é“ Quite well.” A blush. 

“ And old Mrs. Herrick? Iam afraid I must so distinguish 
her.” 

“Grannie? Grannie is quite well, thank you, that is—— ” 
a pause and another blush. 

“ Of course, at her age, one cannot expect great things,” the 
Colonel went on gallantly, “she is—how old P” 

“ Kighty,” with a gasp. 

“ Not so very old naw-a-days,” the Colonel said. “ My 
brother’s mother-in-law is eighty-seven, and gets her frocks from 
Paris. What do you think of that, Miss Ethelwyn P” 

é I think she is very foolish,” Miss Ethelwyn replied, this time 
with decision. 

“ Ah, well, I am not so sure of that,” the Colonel said, and— 
in Miss Etheiwyn’s surprise at his reply—for the first time her 
eyes met his. 

é“ You think me a very frivolous person?’ The Colonel 
smiled. 

Miss Percival blushed again, but no answer came. 

“I had always a great regard for Mrs. Herrick,’ the 
Colonel continued, “one of the most fascinating women I ever 
knew.” 


A sudden and unexpected answer came. “I cannot talk 


4 Christmas Klopement, wl 


about Mrs. Herriok.” Oolonel Granton saw a big tear fall on 
the girl’s cloak. 

What had happened? Had old Mrs. Herrick’s mind given 
way P This was the only possibility that suggested itself to the 
Colonel’s mind, and if so, it was not—at her age—to be wondered 
at. However, the Colonel changed the subject. 

“You were a very small person when I was last here, Miss 
Ethelwyn—fifteen years ago.” 

“ Yes.” 

é“ Fifteen years makes a difference in us all.” 

“ Yes.” 

It was up-hill work, but the Colonel persevered. 

‘© James Twiss, at any rate, does not show much ohange.” He 
turned to look at the figure behind. 

é“ We all think James has aged since his rheumatic attack,” 
Miss Ethelwyn responded primly. 

“ Ah, rheumatism plays the dickens with us all.” 

If the Colonel had sworn, Miss Percival could not have looked 
more horrified; and half provoked, half amused, the Colonel 
relapsed into silence. 

The air was keen, fresh, exhilarating, the beeches still shewed 
brown, the brackens, as yet untouched by frost, stood upright, 
miniature trees ; and Colonel Granton found himeelf counting their 
various shades. No painter, it seemed to him, had ever painted the 
bracken as it could and should be painted. 

They had now reached the brow of the hill, and looked down 
on Pidswell in the distance, and Colonel Granton’s thoughts went 
back to his last visit at the Rectory, and all that had happened 
since. 

Once he had walked as far as Camberwell, and down the street 
from which Mrs. Wiltshire dated her appealing letters, and had 
even caught a glimpse of the lady herself, untidy, frowzy-headed, 
trafficking with an itinerant green-grocer at her door. He had 
been sorry for Mr. Wiltshire, who he remembered as not a bad 
fellow, and full of gratitude for himself. Instinctively he looked 
at the girl by his side, demure, “neat as a pin,” and wondered 
what Mrs. Wiltshire had been like in Percival’s days—-lehind the 
scenes, He had made an escape, that was certain. 

The mare began to quicken her steps, and James Twiss 
admonished his mistress to “ mind her at the turn.” They were 








632 The Irish Monthly. 


opposite the church now; the doors were open, the hum of voices 
came from inside, Christmas decorations were going on. 
Another turn, and the rectory was in sight; another, and they 
had turned in at the green-painted gate, and the next moment. 
the mare had stopped at the door, where Mrs. Herrick was waiting 
to receive her guest. 

“ Frederick, this ts kind.” The Colonel was embraced warmly 
by Mrs. Herrick. 

Colonel Granton, looking round the hall he had once known so 
well, began to be glad he had come. 

“John P” John was the Rector, and the Colonel had looked 
round for him in vain. : 

“John ia superintending the young people at the 
church, he will be back before long. Ethelwyn, your uncle will 
expect you.” 

Ethelwyn, looking longingly at the early oup of tea prepared 
for Colonel Granton, with lingering steps disappeared. 

“ Frederick,” Mrs. Herrick said, when they found themselves 
alone, “‘ Frederick, you find us in great distress. My mother-in- 
law——” Mrs Herrick paused. 

é“ Miss Ethelwyn told me Mrs. Herrick was well,” the Colonel 
said. 

“ My mother-in-law——-’’ Mrs. Herrick began again, and 
again paused. 

é She cannot have eloped”, the Colonel said to himself, grimly 
enough. Why couldn’t Mrs. Herrick speak out P 

“Tfitis her mind, Katherine, at her age——’”’ the Colonel 
began sympathizingly. 

é T wish it was her mind, Frederick,’’ Mrs. Herrick returned 
with solemnity, ‘it is much worse,” (“By Jove, I believe 
she has eloped” Colonel Granton whispered to himself). “ How 
shall I break it to you, Frederick ? Mrs. Herrick has announced 
her intention of becoming a Catholio.” 

“ Well done, Grannie,’’ the Colonel cried. He was so amused 
he clapped his hands. 

é“ Frederick !” 

“ Granny had always plenty of pluck ; but to brave the lion in 
his den at eighty-seven.” 

“ Frederick, that isnot a way to speak of your brother-in-law.” 

“ See here, Katherine,” the Colonel turned and faced Mrs. 








A Christmas Elopement. 638 


Herrick. ‘Tell me one thing: why shouldn't she ?” 

“© Why shouldn’t she?” 

é“ Yes, why shouldn’t she? We are all our own masters and 
mistresses, I suppose P”” 

“ Frederick, do you believe that, at eighty, on such a subject, 
Mrs. Herrick knows her own mind, is capable of judging for 
herself ?” 

“I know what Mrs. Herrick was,” Colonel Granton said. He 
enjoyed the fray. 

This response Mrs. Herrick ignored. ‘‘ The scandal, too, 
the Rector’s mother.” 

‘The Rector’s grandmother,” the Colonel returned profanely. 
“Come, Katherine,” leave your mother-in-law to judge for 
herself.” 

“Tf she is capable.” 

‘‘Capable! And as for the scandal, there are worse.” 

Mrs. Herrick’s face flushed, ‘‘ I know poor Emilia,” she began, 
and Colonel Granton stopped her. 

“I was not thinking of Mrs. Wiltshire,” he said. “What I 
meant to say was ”—he paused, then went on—‘ Katherine, you 
are a sensible woman, you cannot mean to interfere with your 
mother-in-law ? If Mrs. Herrick, with one foot in the grave and 
the other on the edge of it, likes to take this step, who is to prevent 
her? Not John. I will stake my word on that.” 

“I have done my best.” Mrs. Herrick, who was the antipodes 
of Mrs. Wiltshire, was nearer tears than Culonel Granton had ever 
seen her. 

é“ T am sure you have,” he said soothingly, “ but at Grannie’s 
age—come, Katherine, do as you would be done by.” 

‘‘Tf I were desirous to take the step Mrs. Herrick contemplates, 
I should be certain that the day would come when I should be 
thankful that any friend had been Aind enough to restrain me.” 

é The sentence is a little involved, but [ understand.” Colonel 
Granton laid a hand on his sister-in-law’s arm persuasively. “If 
Mrs. Herrick is not very much changed, she knows what she is 
about, better than most of us. Take my advice and leave the old 
lady to her own devices.” 

é“ T looked on you as a man of the world, and the one of the 
connections that might have some influence.” Mrs. Herrick wiped 
her eyes. ‘“ Frederick, Grannie always liked you.” 


634 The Irish Monthly. 


Colonel Granton was glad to hear the “ Grannie.”’ 

é“ You will do what you can P”” 

“ [I cannot promise to interfere,’ the Colonel said, “ but, of 
course, if Mrs. Herrick speaks to me—— ” 

‘She will; she is sure to speak to you,” Mrs. Herrick 
interrupted eagerly. ‘‘ Oh, Frederick, the Rector’s mother !”’ 

“ Look here,” the Colonel said, “don't worry, there’s a good 
soul. If the parishioners sit at Grannie’s feet as they used to do, 
they will probably vote the old lady right.” 

“é That is just it. Oh, Frederick, the example !” 

“ Please, madam, would you speak a moment P” A neatly 
dressed girl stood in the doorway. 

é“ What is it, Jane? Oh, the cook, yes, yes, I am coming.” 
Mrs. Herrick caught up a bunch of keys, and the Colonel was left 
alone. 

But not for very long. He was pouring himself out a cup of 
tea, when the door opened again, and the girl he had seen before 
came in. 

“ Tf you please, sir, would you speak to Mrs. Herrick ? She 
is in her sitting-room.”’ 

To Grannie! The Colonel gulped down his tea and followed 
the messenger. 

As the maid opened the door of the sitting-room, Colonel 
Granton’s eye turned to the armchair generally filled by Mrs. 
Herrick. It was empty. 

é Frederiok,”’ oried an eager voice; and, in travelling dress, 
the old lady herself came across the room to meet him. The 
Colonel had always liked Mrs. Herrick, and it was with real 
emotion he stooped to kiss the hand held out to greet him. 

“Frederick, Katherine has told you? That is right. My 
dear, when you are as old as I am, you will find that things are 
very real, that there is no time for putting off—and—I cannot 
stand a fuss—F'rederiok, I want you to run away with me.” 

At the sight of the eager delicate old face, the Colonel took 
both the trembling hands in his. 

é“ Mrs. Herriok, Grannie, I will do anything I can for you.” 

“ John knows, John approves.” —Grannie gave a sigh followed 
by a little chuckle—“ and you are going to take me away.” 

“ O£ course, I am,” the Colonel said gallantly, “but not 
to-night, surely ?”’ He looked at the long travelling cloak—made 








A Christmas Elopement. 635 


how many years ago P—at, the soft hood. 

é To-night, this very minute. John, poor John, cannot well 
let the priest come here, and—I am o/d, Frederick, odd.” 

é Yes, yes,” the Colonel said. 

“ You have a good heart, Frederick,” the old lady nodded, “I 
have known it ever since that Wiltshire affair, never mind how I 
know it. [ have given them a trifle sometimes myself. You 
have a good heart, and I said to John, when Frederick comes I 
shall make him take me away.” 

é But not to-night.” the Colonel again remonstrated. 

““ Yes, to-night, to Bath.- You will do as I ask you, 
Frederick ? The carriage is ordered, and John, poor John, 
knows.” 

‘ And Katherine, Mrs. Herrick ?”’ the Colonel asked. 

é“ Thatis just it. I don’t want a fuss. I can’t stand a fuss 
at my age, my dear, so Lam going to be a coward and run away,” 
then, sinking her voice, while a smile so innocently mischievous 
played on her lips that the Colonel, troubled as he was, could not 
help laughing, too. ‘ Katherine has been sent for to the kitchen ; 
so let us go.” 

As the carriage, with the runaways, took the turn by the 
church, it suddenly pulled up. It was dark now, but out of the 
darkness a hand was put into the carriage, ‘‘God bless you, 
mother, God bless you. God bless you, Granton,” the Colonel’s 
hand, too, was pressed ; the Rector vanished as he came, and the 
carriage went on. 

“ He’ll come to me,” the old lady said—-by the lamps Colonel 
Granton saw she was wiping her eyes—‘“‘ he will come to me. 
John is a clever and a good man; he will come to me, sooner or 
later.” 

“ And what convinced you, Grannie ?” the Colonel asked a 
little later. He was holding her hand, as if he had been indeed 
her grandson. 

é The Rector,” the old lady said with a chuckle. ‘“ John 
himself. When he talked over his old mother without knowing 
it, he won't be long himself. John is logical; all the Herricke— 
I was one myself—are.” 

“I know you are a wonderful family,” Colonel Granton 
said. 

“ Katherine is a good wife,” the old lady ssid after a pause. 





636 The Irish Monthly. 


‘She may, in one sense, be the grey mare, but whatever John 
does is right. I don’t like a fuss, and so I have run away. But 
I don’t despair of Katherine, my dear.” 

It was with some amusement that Colonel Granton found 
himself spending his Christmas in a Bath hotel instead of eating 
his turbot at Pidswell Rectory. 

‘‘Grannie”’ was in the highest of spirits when th ey met at 
luncheon, and held out two telegrams for his inspection ; one 
contained the Reotor’s characteristic ‘God bless you,” the other 
a loving word or two from Mrs. Herrick. 

“We need not have eloped,” the Colonel said. 

Grannie shook her head. “ Katherine is a good woman, but at 
my age, one cannot bear a fuss,’’ she said. 

“ Katherine ts fussy,” the Colonel admitted. “ You are happy, 
then, Grannie P” 

The delicate lips quivered, then a smile came. ‘‘ My dear, | 
know now what Christ’s Mass means. But what will people say 
when they hear you and I have eloped, my dear ?” 

‘That I wasa lucky man,” the Colonel replied with gallantry. 

Frances MAITLAND. 


HE LAUGHS WHO WINS. 


Los against Time ; and Love hath won the race, 
Fly on, fly, Time! and pass the tryating place. 


Full many a tryst kept we in years agone, 
First by a rose-bush, last at a grave-stone. 


Fly on, fly, Time! and bleach and rend the rose, 
That by the crumbling grave-stone buds and blows. 


We have been here to meet thee, sorrowing, 
Yet now are fled beyond thy swiftest wing. 


Fly faster, Time ! we laugh at thy delays, 
Thou cheat of hearts that fear thy measured days! 


We are beyond thy sickle and thy shears; 
We have moaned all our pains, shed all our tears. 


Thou tyrant art no more; now Love is free 
And laughs at Time, safe in Eternity. 


Rosa MuLHoLLaND QILBERT. 








( 687 ) 


“HELBECK OF BANNISDALE” AND ITS CRITICa. 


T must often strike the reader that one point in which the criticism 
of a great life, or of a work of high talent, frequently falls 
short of its aim, is in its failure to preserve a sense of just proportion 
between the merits and defects of its subject. The reviewer, who is 
nothing if not critical, is often apt, in displaying his acuteness, to 
give the blemishes an undue prominence, while the excellence is 
generally so apparent, that much of it is passed over as taken for 
granted. In this respect Mrs. Humphry Ward’s last work can 
scarcely be said to have suffered at the hands of her critics. Her 
brilliant powers as a writer of fiction have met with full recognition 
from even the most hostile of them. 

Yet, perhaps, they have paid no higher tribute to her great skill 
in delineating character than that unconsciously rendered by them 
in the marked divergence of judgment shown in their estimate of the 
personalities of the hero and heroine. This, we feel at once, is not the 
result of bad drawing, but of a perfect craft that- has given to her 
creations that light and shadeand fulness of character, that makethemen 
and women we meet in life who interest us most, so often the subject of 
the most varied opinions. Alan Helbeck, who gives his name to the 
book, has been described by one reviewer as “a singularly noble, but 
necessarily rare type of English Catholic; ” by another, as a being 
“selfish, proud, ill-tempered, self-willed, hypocritical and priggish; ” 
while a third has declared him ‘‘a perfect gentleman, thvught- 
ful, extremely conscientious, tender and true.” Laura Fountain, the 
heroine, has been dealt with by her critics with a like diversity of 
opinion. 'Í'o one sho is “a most attractive and loveable girl ” with 
“a maidenly reserve,’’ ‘‘a love of purity,” and “a hatred of all that 
is mean and base.” 'To another she is ‘‘an ill-bred, ill-behaved, ill- 
ordered little wretch with little in her but prettiness that is womanly.” 
Strangely conflicting utterances coming from qualified critics !— the 
more strange in the present instance, as being the conclusions of 
Catholic reviewers—yet «ff.rding convincing proof of Mrs. Ward’s 
high talent in depicting life-like characters so many-sided as to 
admit of scrutiny from such opposite stand-points. 

From among these reviewers two can be taken who may be said 
to present the opposite extremes of criticism on the value of Mrs. 
Ward's book as a representation of Catholic life, and of the influence of 
the Church’s teaching on the character of its members, and the aspect 
it presents generally towards the Society of our day. To the 
September number of The Nineteenth Century review, Father Clark 


688 The Irish Monthly. 


8 J., contributed an article entitled, “ A Catholic’s View of Helbeck 
of Bannisdale.” This was followed in the October number by 
“ Another Catholic’s View of Helbeck of Bannisdale,” by Professor 
St. George Mivart. There is much in both that would, I fancy, be 
allowed by any fair-minded Catholic reader to be just criticism, yet 
they are as far as the poles asunder in their ultimate judgmenton the 
book as a fulfilment of the end that a philosophical novel of the kind 
should have in view. Father Clarke’s conclusion is, that “ Mrs. 
Ward’s book ia from beginning to end a libel on all things Catholic.” 
Mr. Mivart, while admitting that the writer “ naturally tries to pro- 
pagate more or less anti-Catholic ideas,” expresses his astonishment 
‘at the carefulness and fidelity with which Mrs. Ward has repre- 
sented things Catholic,” and throughout his article he shows an 
apparently complete satisfaction with what he considers her spirit 
of fairness in dealing with Catholic life and sentiment. Perhaps 
the decision of most Catholics will be that the truth lies somewhere 
between the two. 

It is not likely, I think, that many will consider Father Clarke 
justified in the wholesale condemnation of the book to which he has 
committed himself. What appears to me to be an entire mis- 
apprehension of the mental stand-point of the authoress and of the 
spirit in which the book was conceived, has led Father Clarke into 
injustices towards Mrs. Ward, and even the imputation of a rather 
sinister motive of which most of her readers, I fancy, will be ready to 
acquit her. This is nowhere more apparent than in the strange view he 
has taken of the character of Helbeck. The unfavourable judgment 
of him first quoted above is from Father (larke’s pen. But Helbeck, 
in Father Clarke’s eyes, is not merely selfish, ill-tempered and 
hypocritical. He is “a bigoted Catholic,” possessed of ‘‘an uvhealthy 
and morbid spirit of asceticism and self-renounciation,’’ who ‘‘ speaks 
and acts as a well-instructed Catholic could not possibly speak and 
act if he were in his right senses,” and “ whose whole view of life 
was at variance with the principles of Christian Ethics.” 

How Father Clarke could have received such an impression of a 
figure so well-defined as Helbeck’s, fills one with surprise. Surely 
the portraiture of Helbeck has been drawn by a sympathetic hand. 
The moment he is introduced to us we feel that we are in the presence 
of a nature, whatever its depths may conceal, elevated far above the 
commonplace. His appearance even has been made strikingly 
attractive, and all through the book, we come upon slight, skilful 
touches by which our sympathy is enlisted for him, as much as by 
the broader lines in which his character, as evinced by his actions, is 

‘ated. There is scarcely room for doubt as to the light in which 








“ Helbeck of Banniedale”’ and its Oritics. 689 


the authoress meant her hero to be seen. Even if his untiring gentle- 
ness with Laura in her outbursts of petulance is to be somewhat dis- 
counted as a lover’s forbearance, his tenderness with the orphan 
children, the moderation with which he speaks of his bitter ememies, 
the Masons, and his generous oblivion of the injury they had done 
hin, contrasted with their enduring hatred of himself, are surely the 
traits of a noble character. And the other characters in the book are 
made to bear witness in his favour. Laurua’s vindication of him, on 
hearing of his breach with Williams can scarcely be considered partial 
testimony on the aspect of her lover's character here dealt with. Dr. 
Friedland, no friendly witness, describes him asa typeof ‘ Catholicism 
at its best,” and, after the catastrophe, attests his high qualities. 
“ T have observed his bearing under this intolerable Llow, and always 
I have felt myself in the presence of a good and noble man.” 

Much of Father Clarke’s disapproval of Helbeck may be accounted 
for by his having apparently missed the key to the Squire’s actions of 
self-abnegation furnished by Mrs. Ward. Helbeck, she tells us, 
resided in a district in England which had once been a centre of 
Catholic society, of which he was almost the sole survivor. The 
duties which had theretofore been shared by other members of his 
Creed, were thrown entirely on him, and to the faithful discharge of 
these he had devoted his life and his property. ‘[o an exceptional 
nature of lofty asceticism like his, this seemed only a natural service, 
and the painful struggle between his love and the claims of his reli- 
gion, as he deemed them, is told by the authoress with an impressive 
effect :—. 

‘‘Upon his fidelity now and here, not only his own eternal fate, 
‘but Laura’s, might depend. . . . . He felt his own life 
‘* offered for hers; so that the more he loved her, the more set, the 
é more rigid, became all the habits and purposes of religion. Again 
“ and again he was tempted to soften them—to spend time with her 
‘* that he had been accustomed to give to Catholic practice— to slacken 
“or modify the harshness of that life of self-renouncement, solitude, 
“ and unpopularity to which he had vowed himself for years—to 
““ conceal from her the more startling aud difficult of his cunvictions. 
‘* But he crushed the temptation, guided, inflamed by that profound 
‘idea of a substituted life and a vicarious obedience which has been 
“among, the rovt-forces of Christianity.” 

Yet in this Father Clarke sees only “a piece of unhealthy, un- 
natural, and un-Christian selfishness.”’ 

It cannot be denied, I think, that Mr. Mivart, however one may 
differ from him in some of his criticisms on other points in the book, 
has shown a juster appreciation thau Father Clarke of the characte 





640 The Irish Monthly. 


of Helbeck, and, in so far, of the general view which Mrs. Ward 
meant to present of Oatholic sentiment and practice, and that his 
observations on the tragedy in which Laura’s troubles culminate, are 
only a fair defence of the heroine against Father Clarke’s rather 
exaggerated censures. On Laura's character in other respects the 
two critics seem to be more in agreement. She is shown to us as one 
with a generous nature, alternately attracted and repelled by the 
spirit of Catholicism, the repulsion, however, being the dominating 
tendency. In drawing her character, one cannot help feeling, 
Mrs. Ward has sacrificed artistic completeness to truth. Had Laura 
felt nothing but repugnance for Helbeck’s religion—had she ex- 
perienced no sense even of the sesthetic beauty of the Church, the 
motive for suicide, which fails somehow to impress one as being 
adequate for one of her nature, would have been more powerful, 
and the act of self-destruction less unnatural. Doubtless, then, Mrs. 
Ward's obvervation or insight had disclosed to her that these secret 
cravings for faith were the natural outcome of the influences that 
surrounded Laura. These half-revealed promptings are so real—so 
like what one has often read of in histories of conversions to the 
Faith—that a Catholic cannot but see in them the first stray rays of 
a Divine light penetrating the fog of doubt and prejudice in which 
the young girl’s mind had been growing to its maturity ; and one 
must, therefore, experience a sense of bitter disappointment that these 
beginnings have no ultimate significance, but are cut short in the 
destruction of the young life. 

Though most readers may agree that Father Clarke has gone 
much too far in pronouncing the book “ a gross burlesque” of every- 
thing Catholic, they will not, on the other hand, I fancy, acquiesce in 
Mr. Mivart’s too favourable judgment of it. Itiae, of course, as he 
says, unreasonable to expect Mrs. Ward to write as a friend of 
Catholicism would write. ‘It is enough,” he says, ‘‘if she does not 
represent the Oatholic body as being different from what it really is, 
and if she does not assign to individuals opinions and acts which are 
absurd and impossible.” Assuredly. But Mrs. Ward has not, I think, 
fulfilled these conditions, Had her work been merely a study of 
character, no one could complain of her creations. But it is something 
more. It is an attempt to deal in a philosophical spirit with the 
ethos of Catholicism. Having this intention, she should have borne 
in mind that the Catholics she introduces to her readers would be 
taken by them as in a certain degree typical of their Church. In this 
regard there is no fault to find with Helbeck, exceptional as his 
character is. But for the rest, surely the Catholic body as represented 
in her pages appears in an invidious light—contemptible and ridicu- 








“ Helbeck of Bannisdale”’ and tts Critics. 641 


lous by turns—so as to full little short of the travesty Father Clarke 
declares it. Mre. Fountain, the only Catholic‘laywoman, discrediting 
piety by her weakness and puerility ; Father Bowles and his imbeci- 
lities; the nuns ‘‘ with their unintelligible virtues and their very 
obvious bigotries and littlenesses.”” These ‘‘chattering, cooing sisters,”’ 
who pay ‘their homage to Mra. Fountain,” ‘ Ugh! what manners! 
Must one always, if one was a Catholic, make that cloying and hypo- 
critical impression?’’ ‘‘The many priests and religious,” with their 
‘‘various superstitions and peculiarities.” Father Ledham even, 
with his ‘priestly claims,” and the priest who comes on the scene 
for a moment to give the relic to the dying lady with'his ‘‘ astonishing 
flow of soft pietistic talk,” do not escape a sneer. 

Much, no doubt, of this is presented as the sentiment of Laura, 
but it is given with a persistency, and there is enough besides, to show 
that it is the impression the authoress means to convey of Catholic 
life and spirit. Would a mind uninfluenced by prepossessions regard 
it as a fair one? How much, after all, of the colouring in his 
picture has its birth in the artist’s brain! How modifying is the 
light in which one looks at things! If Mrs. Ward understood 
these men and women who have devoted their lives to religion 
just a little better, how different might be her impressions of them! 
But, if one may apply to her the words she puts into the mouth of 
Helbeck, “ She has set up her bogey, and she likes it.” 

Father Bowles is certainly a caricature, and rather a gross one. 
He is no type of a priest of our age; and Mr. Mivart’s defence of the 
authoress for drawing such a character is a strange one. She can 
give us, he says, chapter and verse for the slightest details in her 
pictures. One of the priest’s singularities is an abhorrence of flies: 
a similar trait is recorded of Bishop Milner. Hence, critics are cau- 
tioned ‘‘to beware of charging Mrs. Ward with exaggeration and 
injustice.’ But Milner is not the original of Father Bowles; he only 
contributes one of his idiosyncracies. There must be many originals 
to supply the other elements of his character. ‘The value of pigments 
to the painter, it might have struck Mr. Mivart, depends entirely on 
their judicious use, and Mrs. Ward’s readers may think that in paint- 
ing from life she has not turned the stock of materials with the 
possession of which Mr. Mivart credits her, to the best advantage in 
her patchwork figure of Father Bowles. 

In somo other of her reproductions of this nature, Mrs. Ward 
has, I think, been similarly unhappy. She puts into the mouth of an 
orphan child one of those pious stories which the authoress has shown 
such industry in culling from the Lives of the Saints and other 
books of Catholic devotion, written probably for Religious and others 


Vou. xxvyz. No. 306 46 





642 The Trish Monthly. 


whose natures are fitted fur practising the higher virtues, but not 
offered as a guide for the general body of the faithful— stories, which, 
taken from their context and placed in another setting, are sure to 
make an unfavourable impression —as Mrs, Ward meant they should 
—on those outside the church to whom the higher spiritual life is 
scarcely a name. The particular story here abstracted by her is one 
such as even a more ignorant and silly teacher than Sister Angela 
would scarcely relate for the edification of a child. 

She is fond, too, of dealing in supernatural “impressions.” To 
Helbeck she gives two; one, a conviction as to the lot of Laura's 
father in the next world, and another relating to the salvation of 
Marie. Williams has experienced his “impression ” concerning the 
danger of Helbeck’s relations with Laura, in a meditation. Even the 
silly Mrs. Fountain has not been left without one. One fancies it 
would be possible to suggest one or two of the originals of these. 
Newman tells us in his Apologia, with a simple and modest wonder, 
of the strange presentiment he felt in Italy that he “had a work to 
do in England ; ” of his conviction, uttered as he lay apparently at 
the point of death, “I shall not die, fur I have not sinned against 
light.” In Cardinal Wiseman’s life we read of the startling effect 
upon his mind produced by one of his meditations. However a 
Catholic may feel inclined to treat these experiences with respect as 
possible manifestations of God's dealings with great souls, most 
readers, I fancy, will regard as indifferent art their transformation 
into the spiritual ‘‘impressions’’ of the uvstable Williams and the 
weuk-minded Augustina. 

One other story of the kind referred to above, which has claimed 
the attention of Mra, Ward's critics, may, perhaps, admit of a word 
more. It is an anecdote relating to Saint Francis Borgia repeated by 
Laura to Helbeck. I give it, without Laura’s glosses, as related by 
Alban Butler, who, I fancy, may be Mrs. Ward’s source :— 

“ His Duchess, Eleanor, who concurred with him in all his pious 
‘‘ views, fell sick of a lingering distemper, during which Francis 
‘‘ continued to fast, pray, and give large alms for her recovery. One 
“ day as he was praying for her, prostrate in his closet, with great 
‘‘ earnestness, he was on a sudden visited with an extraordinary 
‘‘ interior light in his soul, and heard, as it were, a voice saying dis- 
‘‘ tinctly within him: ‘If thou wouldst have the life of the Duchess 
‘‘ prolonged, it shall be granted; but it is not expedient for thee.’ 
“ This he heard so clearly and evidently that, as he assured others, 
“ he could not doubt either then or afterwards, but it was a divine 
‘admonition. He remained exceedingly confounded: and penetrated 
“ with a most sweet and tender love of God, aud bursting into a fluod 


“ Helbeek of Bannisdale”’ and its Critics. 643 


“* of tears, he addressed himself to God as follows :—‘O my Lord and 
“é my God, leave not this, which is only in Thy power, to my will. 
“* ‘Who art Thou but my Creator and Sovereign Good? And who 
‘* am I but a miserable creature? I am bound in all things to con- 
é“ form my will to Thine. Thou alone knowest what is best, and what 
‘* ig for my good. As I am not my own, but altogether Thine, so 
“4 neither do [ desire that my will be done, but Thine. Do what Thou 
‘* pleasest with the life of my wife, that of my children, and my own, 
‘* and with all things Thou hast given me.’” 

The Duchess died. Father Clarke speaks of this story (as 
related by Laura) ‘‘as perhaps the most successful ‘hit’ made by 
Mrs. Ward, and one that will at first sight make a very painful 
impression on all Protestant and some Catholic readers.” With 
all modesty I must own I fail both to appreciate the “hit,” and to 
see why any Catholic should be painfully impressed by the story. 
Laura’s emphasis of the words ‘expedient for thee—thee mind, not 
her,” appear to me a narrow and child-like criticism. ‘The voice was 
an answer to the prayer of the Saint. Why should it deal with God’s 
designs respecting his wsfe? And her picture of deserted infant 
children is simply untrue. Mr. Mivart tells us that he had known the 
circumstances of the story for many years, and that they had always 
been “in the highest degree revolting” to him. It was a mani- 
festation, he thinks, of “callous selfishness.’’ He actually describes 
it as ‘‘one of the most memorable, because most modern, cases of 
a human sacrifice offered to God !” and as ‘‘ legally and morally an 
act of murder” !! The judgment on this criticism may be left to 
the common sense of all readers, 

In support of what he deems his just disapproval of the saint’s 
action on the occasion, Mr. Mivart suggests a parallel which affords, 
I think, a singular instance of confusion of reasoning: Mr. Brown, 
whose wife is dying, has a medicine which he knows would restore 
her to health. But he hears an interior voice, which he judges to be 
a divine one, declaring that his wife’s recovery will not be “ expedient 
for him.” He withholds the medicine, and his wife dies. Mr. Brown, 
says Mr. Mivart, is guilty of murder. In thinking he heard a voice 
he might have been the victim of a delusion. How could St. Francis 
have known that the voice he heard was divine, and not an hallucina- 
tion? ‘And what,” Mr. Mivart asks, “is the difference between the 
supposed Mr, Brown's withholding of the medicine and Saint Francis 
Borgia’s withholding the prayer, the utteranco of which he was con- 
vinced would have sovereign efficacy in affecting his wife’s recovery ?” 
Simply this. In the case of Mr. Brown, the voice counselled him not 
to use a medicine which he knew from a natural source would effect a 


644 The Irish Monthly. 


cure in a natural way. Iu the case of the Saint, the voice offered a 
supernatural cure which it counselled him not to take. Had the voice 
in Mr. Brown’s case been false, and had he obeyed it, he would have 
been responsible for his wife’s death. Had the voice in the case of 
the Saint been false, the cure it offered would have been a delusion 
too, and there would have been none for the Saint to use. To make 
the cases analagous the efficacy of the cure in Mr. Brown’s case should 
have depended on the truth of the voice But the reasoning seems 
trivial as well as unsound. Saint Francis believed firmly that the 
admonition was a Divine one. His love for his wife and deep grief 
at the thought of losing her were evinced during her illness by his 
unceasing penances and alms-giving and prayers for her recovery. 
But God, as he believed, revealed to him that it was not His will that 
she should recover—' not for God's glory ” is the equivalent Father 
Clarke uses; a familiar expression that Mr. Mivart as a Catholic ought 
to understand—and the Saint submitted. Most Catholics, I trust, 
will reject the narrow, human interpretation which Mr. Mivart puts 
on this story, as if it were in substance that uf an appeal made by the 
Almighty to the self-love of the Saint, and will understand it in the 
broader and more spiritual sense indicated by Father Clarke, and 
shown by the words used by Saint Francis, to be the sense in which 
he received the admonition. 

Once, when showing in himself a splendid example of loyal sub- 
mission to the Church, Mr. Mivart used these words :—‘' I am indeed 
certain that every one who has not become acquainted with Catholic 
theolugy (whether he accepts it or not) is and must be so far in an 
intellectually inferior position. . . . . Through [the Catholic 
Faith] I have obtained conceptions which have much broadened my 
mind and strengthened my intellect.” One might have expected 
from him more evidence of that broadening of mind than is shown 
in his criticism of this story, and his designation of the virtue of de- 
tachment as an “‘ utterly abhorrent mental state.” A Catholic surely 
might respect it as a virtue, not proposed to the faithful generally as 
a pattern, but as one which souls of rare and exalted sanctity 
who have reached a degree of absolute self-renunciatian may aim at 
without dread of the taint of religious selfishness. For the essence of 
the virtue is the complete renouncement of self by the subjugation 
of even the purest human affection for the love of God. ‘If any man 
come to me, and hate” not his father, and mother, and wife, and chi!- 
dren, and brethren, and sisters, yea! and his own life also, he cannot 
be my disciple.” 


* It is scarcely necessary to say that ‘‘hate’’ here is only a Hebraism for 
loving less, for loving creatures with due subordination to the sovereign claims of 
Creator. 





“ Helbeck of Bannisdale’’. and ite Critics. 645 


Space does not permit me to do more than add auother protest to 
those already made against what all Catholics save Mr. Mivart, it is 
to be hoped, will regard as Mrs. Ward’s gross misrepresentation of the 
tendency of the Catholic doctrine about sin, in a passago in which she 
lays it to the charge of Catholic discipline that it weakens a man’s 
instinctive confidence in women. This, and similar views presented as 
the impressions of Laura, have been dealt with by an able reviewer in 
The Month. They are impressions, it may be inferred, that Mrs, 
‘Ward has derived, not from her observation of Catholic life as she 
might have beheld it around her, but from reading the class of books 
from which she has extracted the pious stories related in her pages. 

The nature of her objections generally—insinuated rather than 
stated—indicates, I think, how far Mrs. Ward, with all her 
breadth of view, has failed to realise the universality of the Church’s 
mission to mankind, the Catholicity of her attributes and functions. 
When one reflects on the vustness of her sphere of operation as 
teacher and guide of the mind of every age, and men of every race 
and every type of character, it is no matter for wonder that much of 
her philosophy should appear inscrutable to the precise phase of 
thought and temper of being depicted in Mrs. Ward’s characters who 
are outside the Church. But samples of Catholic thought and 
sentiment of another age and other races than ours, selected for the 
adverse impression they make, scarcely constitute the fairest view to 
be presented of the Church as she exists among us. Such things are 
rather matters of fashion and taste which vary necessarily in different 
countries and different centuries, and do not affect the unchanging 
truths of Faith. 

Notwithstanding this, however, and more that might be noticed, 
there isin ‘‘ Helbeck of Bannisdale ” much that a Catholic can read 
with unqualified satisfaction. For a writer outside the Church to 
show such a full appreciation of the spirit of Catholicism in its influence 
on a lofty nature, and to testify aa forcibly as Mrs. Ward has done 
through the lips of her hero, to the logical strength of the Church’s 
attitude as an emanation from her theology, is a proof of the pos- 
session of wide sympathies. 

Perhaps what strikes one most in the book as a proof of Mrs. 
Ward's talent is her power in presenting two characters—both fine 
natures—whose principles are in deadly antagonism, drawn with such 
life-like truth and such fulness of sympathy for both, that they appear 
by turns almost to speak the writer's sentiments, while with a subtle 
art—a half suggested criticism of her own, or an obvious note of 
exaggeration in the feeling expressed—she always stops short of 
identifying herself with either, To Helbeck she gives the superiority 


646 The Irish Monthly. 


in the controversy, but she takes care to show us that Laura is nota 
well-equipped champion of the opposite view. 

“Look,” he says, “at the root of it. Is the world under sin— 
and has God died forit? . . . . ButifaGod died and must die 
cruelly, hideously, at the hands of his creatures—to satisfy eternal 
justice, what must that sin be that demands the crucifixion? 

2 Is any chastisement too heavy, and restraint too 
harsh, if it keep us from the sin for which our Lord must die? .. . 
All these mortifications, and penances, and self-denials that you hate 
so, that make the saints so odious in your eyes, spring from two great 
facta— Sin and the Crucifixion. But, Laura, are they true ?’’ Could 
a Catholic put it more strongly? Arethey true? Are they leas true 
now than when God died for us? Have men ceased to sin” And 
are prayers, and penances, and self-renunciation no longer needful? 


CuaRLEs T. WATERS. 


A ROSE. 


Wits dews of grace besprent a rose-bud grew, 
And vowed herself to heaven; and days benign 

Wooed her with summer, winning line on line, 

Her secret beauty to her Spouse’s view. 

Ah, Rose, my sister! that red hope was you— 

Your sun, the light and heat of Love Divine ; 

And now to Him, to Whom you did assign 

The bursting bloom, the full-blown flower is due. 


By any other name you were as sweet ; 

But now, your maiden meaning to disclose, 
One word, meseems, is more than ever meet, 
For that, until its latest moment blows, 
Your life is rooted in that green retreat, 
The cloistered garden of the Mystic Rose. 


Joun Fitzpatrick, O.M.I. 





( 647 ) 


- 


THE WASHERS OF THE NIGHT. 
A Legend of Lower Brittany. 


WISHING, swishing in the stream, 
Washing linen black and white ; 
Ever washing ’neath the gleam 
Of the pale moonlight. 


Weird and wan the washers stand, 

Spectral washers of the night, 

Wringing on the river strand 
Ghostly shrouds of white. 


Still the cheerful lights are gleaming 

In the tavern of the town, 

Where he sits— fool !—vainly dreaming 
His remorse to drown. 


On the hill his young wife’s feet 

Linger at the open door, 

As she waits with smile to greet 
Him she’ll greet no more. 


But the Washers also wait 

By the river cold and gray, 

Listening with avenging hate 
For the coming prey. 





Where the willows darkest bend, 
Shone the last moon’s livid light, 

Looking down where lay the friend 
Of the wretch who drinks to-night. 


Prayerless fell he, and unshriven ; 
Stabbed behind by dastard blow. 

To despair his mother driven 
Cursed in dying, cursed his foe. 


Worms upon their bodies feed, 

O'er their grave young grasses grow ; 
None can say who did the deed, 

But the Midnight Washers know. 





648 The Irish Monthly. 


Comes the murderer by the river; 
Strong with borrowed strength of wine, 
And the weeping willows shiver, - 
And the moon doth paler shine. 


But the drunkard hath forgot, 

And his footsteps careless go, 
Treading past the very spot 

Where he dealt the dastard blow. 


Then the Washers of the night 
Fiom their washing slowly rise, 

And he sees their garments white, 
And the burning of their eyes. 


Fast he runs with feet of fear, 
But the Washers are behind ; 
Light of home is near—so near— 
But they follow like the wind. 


On his cheek their icy breath, 
Clutching fingers at his throat, 
As they drag him back to death, 
Where his friend, last moon, he smote. 


Round his neck a shroud they throw, 
Twisting tight and tighter still, 
Hark! his death-cries faintly go 
To the young wife on the hill. 





“ Grant the dead eternal light,” 
Murmurs she, with cross and sigh, 
‘(Some poor wandering soul to-night, 

Soul in pain, is passing by.” 


But she hears the mad despair 
Of the murderer’s last wild cry, 
“May God shield us ’neath His care! 
Soul to hell is passing by.” 


Frank PENTBILL. 





( 649 


DOINGS IN THE DALE. 
CHAPTER XXVII. 


KINDRED SPIRITS. 


Thou cam’st not to thy place by accident, 
It is the very place God meant for thee. 
TaENcH. 


I” was a half-holiday, and a football match with a Dale school- 
team was coming off in the afternoon. The lads were taking 
a run in the park between morning school and dinner. 

é What a gawk I am!” exclaimed Lance, stopping suddenly 
and facing Willie Murrington. “I promised Sweetie last week 
Td spend this afternoon with him—never thinking of the match.” 

é That's all right,” said Willie. ‘ Don’t you bother about 
that. You'll play much better than I could do; I’ll stay with 
Sweetie.”’ 

Lance shook hishead. ‘“ A bargain’s a bargain, you know,” 
he said. 

“ But, look here, Lanny— it’s so awfully cold to-day, and you 
know how helpless I am when I’m cold.” 

Iuance looked at his foster-brother, whose face was a pale 
purple, and whose teeth were chattering. 

“ With blue-cold nose and wrinkled brow, traveller, traveller, 
whence com at thou P” quoted Lance, and then—“ Billy, Billy, 
you do look chilly !” 

“ You know I never shirk the game, Lance.” 

“ Of course not. You’ve got an imperfect circulation, old 
chap; that’s what it is.” 

“ But you wouldn't, like to miss this match P” 

Lance paused. “If Hilly can make up his team, it'll be all 
allright. At this time of the year we can always get a farm lad 
or two.” 

Willie did not shirk the game, but he had always to do 
violence to himself in order to remain to the end of the match. 

“ You'll let me stay with Sweetie—won’t you P” he pleaded. « 

é All right, old chap. I’ll see the little man after dinner. But 
I must talk to Hilly first.” 


650 The Lrish Monthly. 


It wae a bitterly cold day following upon many mild weeks— 
the sort of day that an open winter sends now and then as a kind 
of practical joke, or just to remind the world what it could bring 
about if it were so inclined. All the younger children were in 
the big day nursery and after dinner, Willie and Sweetie made nests 
for themselves in the down-stairs play-room. A bonny red fire 
burnt in the big grate, and the room glowed with a true winter 
cheeriness. It was really the cold-weather Sniggery, and its 
gallery of coloured pictures might have occupied a chance spectator 
for an entire afternoon. 

‘I’ve got a secret, Wilhe,” announced Sweetie, raising his eyes 
aud turning his head a little on one side. ‘ Do guess what it is!” 

Willie made many guesses, probable and possible ones 
alternating with the grotesque and outlandish, much to Sweetie’s 
delight. 

“ Wrong every time,” cried the little boy clapping his hands. 
“ Dó give it up!” 

So Willie, who from the beginning had in his own mind 
guessed what it was, gave it up in apparent despair. 

é“ Well,” said Sweetie slowly and mysteriously, “ Dr. Byrse 
is coming directly to try the new organ, and if we have the door 
open we shall hear it perfectly. Father whispered it to me just 
after dinner.” 

It was Willie’s turn to clap his hands now. And “ we are in 
luck !” he exclaimed. I 

The new organ—new, that is, to Ridingdale Hall, for it was 
an old instrument, mellow and powerful—was the Colonel’s very 
latest gift. Mr. Kittleshot had cut bim out so completely in the 
matter of the orchestral instruments that the old soldier was 
determined to do something big on his own account. Finding 
this very desirable instrument in the market, he had secured it at 
once, and no greater surprise present had ever gladdened the souls 
of the Ridingdales. It had been tuned only the day before, and 
the Professor was coming this afternoon to give an informal 
recital preparatory to a regular performance a little later. 

The first notes scarcely reached the two boys as they sat 
chatting in the play-room, for the Doctor was only extemporising 
on the softest of the stops, but as soon as he began to use the 
swell Sweetie pricked his ears, and “ H’sh-h-h!’’ he whispered, 
‘‘let us go straight to Heaven, Willie, hand in hand,” 








Doings tn the Dale. 651 


The bigger boy gave his hand into the blind child’s keeping, 
and as the low, melodious thunder began to rumble in the 
distance, stealing out from the entrance hall through the broad, 
silent corridors, and finding its way to every corner of the house. 
S weetie’s hand tightened upon the other’s and the breathing of 
the little mystic became quick and short, and his whole body 
rigid with delighted listening. 

There came a short spell of silence. The Dootor had been 
playing tentatively, trying the solo stops and testing the diapason, 
but he had not yet used the full power of the instrument. 

Suddenly there pealed through the house the grand March 
from Tannhaiiser. 

“I amso sorry, Willie,” the blind child moaned as he lay in 
his foster-brother’s arms. ‘I tried so hard not to ory out.” He 
was trembling still, though the crashing forlissimo had ceased. 

é You had never heard it before, Sweetie ?” 

“Never! Itis foo grand—awful!”’ 

“ Listen, Sweetie!” The player had begun a tender little 
melody of Schubert. “ That is better, dear, isn’t it ?” 

“ Oh, yes,” whispered the child; “ that is oneof the Holy 
Innocents singing.”’ 

The music of the organ had exercised an extraordinary 
influence upon Sweetie from the time he was three years old. His 
mother had described it to him in later years as a House of 
Harmony, a Palace of Sound, in which many sweet-voiced 
instruments answer to the touch of a single player. 

“I think the whole world is like an organ,” the child said 
when the music ceased. “I hear musio always. It is very soft 
sometimes—I mean the wind, of course—and is like what 
god-father calls the swell of the organ. But sometimes it storms 
like the music Dr. Byrse plays at the end of Mass. Mother says 
there are flute stops in our organ, and so there are in the garden 
and the park. Lance has taught me the difference between the 
thrush’s song and the blackbird’s, and I hear them both in the 
organ.” 

“ Musio without words?” asked Willie. 

“0, but I hear the words too—at least something that is the 
same as words. I know what the birds sing to one another. The 
thrush sings all sorts of funny things. Lance calls it ‘ that jolly 
old christy minstrel ;’ but he says the blackbird is a melancholy 


652 The Irish Monthly. 


old cove with only one tune.” 

“ But then the tune is such a pretty one,” Willie contended. 
“I think it js as sweet as anything the thrush sings. And 
then the blackbird carols all through the rain, you know, and | 
love him forthat. ‘Notes few, and strong, and fine,’” quoted 
Willie— 

“ Gilt with sweet day’s decline 
And sad with promise of a different sun.”” 

“ Please, Willie dear, say that just once again, then I can 
remember it for always.” 

“ What a memory you have, Sweetie,” said Willie, delighted 
with this opportunity of a quiet talk with the blind child, and 
longing to listen rather than to speak. 

é“ Hilary was asking a riddle the other day,” Sweetie went on, 
é but they all laughed so much [ couldn’t make out what it meant. 
You were in it, Willie, and I want you to explain it. It was ‘ Why 
is Willie Murrington like Mr. Norman Gale’s cuckoo?’ Some- 
body gave the answer, and then they all laughed, and I didn’t 
hear.” 

“ Oh, it was not one of Hilary’s best, you know. The answer 
is—‘ Because he is dropping lyrics in the lane.” 

“ But what does it mean, Willie?” 

“Well, you see,” began the embarrassed verse-writer, ‘‘ the 
answer is a quotation from one of Norman Gale’s poems. Now 
it so happened that, running up the lane, I dropped some papers out 
of my pocket, and Hilary, who came home later, picked them up. 
He couldn’t help seeing there were verses on them, and so he said 
I had been ‘ dropping lyrics in the lane.’ ” 

“& Won't you read thém to me, Willie P” 

‘Father has them. But let me repeat something to yon, 
Sweetie, that is really worth hearing. Did-you ask Lance about 
the Paradise I told you of P” 

“ Q, yes,” and he said it was too hard for anybody but a 
grown-up to understand.” 

é“ It is hard,” assented Willie. ‘I can only understand a bit 
here and there. But now, this passage is not too difficult.” 

Willie repeated very slowly a few stanzas from the opening 
of the thirty-third canto of Dante’s Paradiso. 

“ It is about our Blessed Lady,” said Sweetie when his com- 
panion had finished. ‘I don’t understand it all, Willie, and it 

rants—it wants—— ”’ 





| Doings in the Dale. 653 


é“ Yes, I know what you mean, Sweetie. It wants music, at 
any rate in English. You like something with a sweeter sound 
in it—don’t yon P”” 

It was so easy sometimes to forget that Sweetie was a child. 
Willie was not the only one who did not remember that the little 
man’s mind had its severe limitations, and that however acute 
his ear might be, and: however retentive his memory, his under- 
standing was only very partially developed. Just at present he 
resembled Lance in this, that no poetry attracted him unless it 
had a lilt in it. | 

Willie was a little older than Lance, a better student, a much 
deeper thinker, and a most ardent lover of whatsoever could 
be called literature. He loved music, too, and his own voice, 
though a little thin, was very pleasing. But he could not rollick 
in sopg as Lance could. Perhaps he had never possessed the 
breezy temperament of the Ridingdales; if he had, constant fear 
and ill-treatment had robbed him of it. 

Still his society was very grateful to Sweetie, for Willie had 
great store of all good things in prose and verse, and the child’s 
repertoire of poems and stories was being constantly increased by 
his foster-brother. 

This afternoon, Willie had brought two books to the play- 
room. One was Cary’s Dante, the other a favourite story-book— 
one of Dr. George Macl)onald’s, and curiously enough the latter 
had suggested the former. For Willie had-set himself the task 
of reading every line of the Divine Comedy, though he confessed 
that the greater part of it had very little meaning for him. He 
had marked certain passages that he thought he understood, and 
with the intention of reading them to Sweetie. For, said the 
writer of “ Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood ?’—‘‘ Sometimes I would 
read to them out of Milton—I read the whole of ‘ Comus’ to them, 
by degrees in this way; and although there was much that I 
could not at all understand, I am perfectly certain it had an 
ennobling effect upon every one of us. It is not necessary that 
the intellect should define and separate before the heart and soul 
derive nourisument. As well say that a bee can get nothing out 
of a ower because she does not understand botany. The very 
music of the stately words of such a pvem is enough to generate a 
better mood, to make one feel the air of higher regions and wish 
to rise ‘above the smoke and stir of this dim spot.’ The best 


654 The Ivish Monthly 


influences which bear upon us are of this vague sort—powerful 
upon the heart and conscience, although undefined to the 
intellect.” 

Now Willie thoroughly understood this passage and was very 
anxious to make experiment on Sweetie with Dante’s Paradiso. 
The boy had read this before venturing to begin upon the /nferno, 
and had promised himself the pleasure of walking through Heaven 
again in Sweetie’s company. But the music had interposed, and 
both of them had already climbed the golden stair and— 
returned to earth. 

However, “the earth is His possession ” just asthe Heaven 
of Heavens, and as Willie often quoted : 


é The earth is so full of beautiful things, 
I think we ought all to be happy as kings.” 


Doubtless, he thought, Sweetie is right to prefer Paradise to 
anything else; meanwhile it is God’s will that we remain fora 
while in the world He has Llimself created. Earth often became 
a kind of heaven in his opinion. There was the Abiding Presence 
not very far away; there was the Holy Mass every morning; 
there was the most Blessed Eucharist every Sunday. And it was 
not true, most certainly it was not true, to say there are no angels 
and saints upon earth. Not so many as in heaven, of course; 
but what was the innocent child whose deepest thoughts were of 
God, and whose mind busied itself so constantly about all holy 
things—what was his foster-brother Sweetie but a little one who 
had been cherub-kissed at his birth and seraph-haunted ever since ? 
And if father and mother were not holy, well—what is holiness P 

Earth might be hell, or at least a purgatory —that Willie knew 
but too well. Even the Squire was not aware of the extent of 
his foster-son’s sufferings in the past. It was enough for Mr. 
Ridingdale to know that the boy had been harslily treated, and 
that his faith was in danger. No one asked him questions—the 
Squire had forbidden it. ‘‘ Here isa poor unfortunate child of 
good birth,” he had said to the boys, ‘who has lost his own 
father and mother, and who for years has been treated with the 
greatest cruelty. Leas kind to him as you possibly can, and 
make him feel that he has a true home here, and a brother in 
every one of you. And never saya word to him about the past.”’ 
Very nobly and generously had the Ridingdale lads done their 


Doings in the Dat. 655 


father’s bidding. They had almost forgotten that Willie was not 
of their own flesh and blood. 

Yes, earth might be almost an inferno if a wicked man liked 
to make it so; but the great Father above who permitted the evil 
also limited it and brought cut of it the highest possible gocd. For, 
as Willie sometimes asked himself—What would have happened 
if his step-father had been kind and gentle, winning his affection 
as a child of tender years? Wasit not almost certain that he would 
have lost the greatest of all God’s gifts, that of the Faith? He 
had promised his dying mother that, whatever might happen, 
he would always remain a Catholic; but then he was almost too 
young at that time to realise the nature of so solemn a promise, 
and it is certain that if his Protestant step-father had been in the 
habit of going to the village church, Willie would have been 
compelled to go with him. The servants, indeed, had taken the 
child there when he was very young, but for several years before 
Mr. Ridingdale took compassion upon him, Willie had persisted 
in going to Mass every Sunday, though the church was miles 
away, and the consequences—if his step-father had chanced to be 
awake when the boy returned—were painful in the extreme. 


Something in the book Willie was reading aloud to Sweetie 
on this winter afternoon sent the reader’s thoughts spinning back 
to the past. He had put Dante away for the present ; but like 
his present hero, Ranald Bannerman, he “ never liked to leave the 
loose end of a thing hanging about,” and he resolved to finish the 
Paradiso in private. By-and-by he would read it aloud to his 
little friend—in a year’s time, perhaps—for did not Ranald’s 
father say that “every poem carries its own tune in its own heart, 
and to read it aloud is the only way to bring out its tune.”’ 

It was the thought of Ranald’s father that made Willie’s 
mind wander even as he read. The shouts of the football players 
in the Park had come to the two recluses again and again during 
the afternoon; but it was not until a hearty burst of cheering 
told that the match was over that Willie shut the story-book, and 
at the same time checked the thoughts that were too deep for 
tears. 

‘Fish, flesh, or fowl—and mind you, it wasn't a fou/—it’s 
three goals to two,”—they heard a voice say as the home team 
passed the window. 





656 The Irish Monthly. 


‘‘That’s dear old Lanny!’ exclaimed Sweetie, as Willie 
began to laugh heartily. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


THE COMING OF CHRISTMAS. 


“They who joy would win must share it, 
Happiness was born a twin.”’ 


Very early in December Mr. Kittleshot had done his best to 
persuade the Squire to bring his entire family to Timington Hall 
for the Christmas festivities. Ridingdale affected to treat the 
invitation as a joke. 

“It is much too large an order,” he laughed. ‘No,no! A 
thousand thanks for your kindness; Timington Hall would never 
recover sich an invasion. But if you yourself are not going 
away for Christmas, why not come to us—for the whole season, if 
you like P We can give you a suite of rooms.” 

Mr. Kittleshot promptly and thankfully accepted the invitation. 
He had been dreading a lonely Christmas—though he might have 
known that Ridingdale would not have permitted such a 
catastrophe; but his son was going to the south of France for the 
sake of his wife’s health, and even Lardlow, the last place in the 
world the old gentleman would have cared to spend Christmas 
at, would be practically shut up. 

é“ We shall certainly be able to extend our hospitality a little 
this year,” the Squire said to his wife. “Things are looking up 
amazingly. If we are not lavish in some small way, before very 
long we shall be getting wealthy, and that ’—— 

“And that?” enquired Mrs. Ridingdale, laughingly, as her 
husband hesitated. 

“é Well, that would be the very crown of misfortune.” 

‘Certainly, dear; but just at present there is no call for alarm 
on that score.” 

“ But there are no Christmas bills coming in—are there P ” 

“ Not one that will be more than a fortnight old; but then, 
dear, our ordinary expenses will be greater for n week or two, and 
Mr. Kittleshot’s coming will make a differance.” 








Doings in the Dak. 657 


“ I had forgotten that, for the moment, my darling. I am 
afraid I was a little rash in asking him to come. It’s no joke— 
undertaking to entertain a millionaire.” 

But ten days or so before Christmas, all anxiety was removed 
from the mind of husband and wife, and as the Feast itself drew 
near they began to consider what they could possibly do with all 
the hampers and cases and parcels that poured themselves into the 
kitchen yard and made Jane declare that “it was one body’s work 
simply to go to the door and receive them.” 

“© Of course, father,” said Lance, as he and the Squire stood 
one morning after breakfast looking at the chaos of presents, “of 
course you'll suspect my motive; but really now ’’—slipping bis 
arm. into his father’s—“ the only thing is to let us off school a 
day or two earlier so that we can distribute some of this stuff in 
the village.” 

‘*Ha, ha! You scamp!” laughed the Squire, pinching his 
son’s ear, “that’s your solution of the difficulty—is it? All very 
well, you know, but we have Dr. Byrse to reckon with now.” 

‘Qh, father! just as if he’d mind if you asked him.” 

“ What about the exams. P” 

“é All over last night, father.” 

é“ And all of you plucked, I suppose.” 

“ Not adi, father,” said Lance, shyly. He was very doubtful 
about his own fate; but the Doctor had not yet examined the 
papers. 

é“ You see,” the boy continued, clasping his father’s arm with 
both hands, “ there’ll be such a /ot to do and ””— 

* Such a lot of you to do it.” 

“ Well, but, father—think of all the decorations, here and at 
church. Then there’s the music, and Christmas letters, and the 
Yule log and the plays and—and all sorts of things. And I know 
you're going to give a heap of this to the poor—mother told me 
so, and it’s only fair they should have it in good time—eh, 
father ?”’ 

The Squire laughed so much that Mrs. Ridingdale came out 
into the kitchen-yard. 

é This young man will come to no good,” he said. “ Heisa 
master of special pleading already. There, now—off to school 
with you. I'll look in direotly and see the Doctor.” 

é“ Hurrah!” shouted Lance, making off as fast as a new ps*- 

Vou. xxvi. No. 306. 47 


658 The Iruh Monthly. 


of lace-up clogs would let him—a pair of great strength for winter 
use, and “specially built ” for him, he said, as the “ hardest wearer " 
of the family. 

é He meant it all the time,” Lance shouted as he caught up 
on the others outside the school-room door, and explained the 
situation. “And of course the Doctor won't mind. Father ‘ll 
be here in two two’s; you see if he isn’t !” 

They had scarvely opened their books when the Squire came in, 
and in less than three minutes they had left Dr. Byrse half stunned 
with their ringing cheers. 

“The first thing is to make an inventory,” the Squire 
announced. ‘ Here, Hilary, take this note-book !” 

It was a marvel where all the turkeys and geese and game pies 
and hampers of wine, aud cases containing a thousand and one 
delicacies, had come from. A few of them bore complimentary 
inscriptions, but by far the greater number gave no clue as to the 
sender. Yet the Squire was not mystified. 

é The bulk of the things have been sent by Mr Kittleshot, of 
course,” he said to his wife, “but for some reason or other the 
Ridingdale tradesmen are exceptionally generous this year.” 

“ Well, dear, if our custom is not great, Mr. {ittleshot’s is, and 
they know that they have received that through you.” 

é“ Wonderful people, those shopkeepers,”’ chuckled the Squire ; 
“but fancy Mr. Simkit making meapresent! Do you think we 
have bought a dozen bottles of wine during the whole year ?”’ 

“No, but Mr. Kittleshot has. My dear, you seem incapable 
of putting two and two together.” 

“ Well, Hilary isn’t at any rate. Look at his row of figures !’’ 

é I do believe we shall be able to send something substantial 
to every one of our own poor people,” Mrs. Ridingdale said with 
evident satisfaction. “ How many turkeys are there, Hilary ?” 

“ Sixteen, mother, and the same number of geese.”’ 

é“ Hold on, Hilly! There’s Jack here with a hamper as big 
as a piano,’ —called out Lance. 

The Squire sat down on a packing case, the image of comical 
despair. “ Kittleshot is a humourist,”’ he said. 

é The cry is, “Still they come,’ ”’ shouted Harry, for one cart 
had hardly driven away before another one appeared. 

“ Oh, I know what this is!” exclaimed Gareth. “ It’s the 
Colonel’s box with the Christmas tree things in it.” 








Doings in the Dale. 659 


A dozen ready hands bore it indoors and plumped it down in 
the entrance hall. 

The boys were enjoying themselves hugely, and, as George 
remarked, ‘‘ Lance was soaking up all the credit like a sponge on 
two legs.” 

“ Well, you can’t deny I got you all two days’ extra 
holiday,” cried the irrepressible one, scattering a handful of 
shavings on George’s head, and then dropping Gareth bodily into 
an empty hamper. 

“é You fellows want organizing, I can see,” said the Squire. 
** My dear ”’—turning to Mrs. Ridingdale —“ can’t you give Lance 
something indoors—knives, or boots, or something P”” 

“ Oh, father !” exclaimed Lance, as the laughter left his face. 

Mr. and Mrs, Ridingdale were talking together in a low tone. 
é We will take them just as they come,” she was saying. ‘If one 
bird is bigger than another, so much the better for the recipient.” 

“ Only we must have regard to long families.” 

“Qh yes. ‘The Browns ought to have two, and the 
Bateses.”’ 

é“ Well, then, we can make a start. Here, Lance!” 

The boy olattered up eagerly. 

é“ You and Willie take these tothe Browns. And don’t forget 
to wish them a merry Christmas,” 

In a little while the lads were all bearing away the good 
things in different directions. 

“ What a glorious day it has been!” exclaimed Lance when 
they all met together in the play-room after supper. ‘It’s just 
the jolliest thing in the world giving things away—isn’t, Hilly ?” 

“ Yes,” said the big boy, “it's the greatest of all luxuries, I 
think. About the only thing that need make one long to be 
rich.” 

é What delightful things the people said—didn’t they, 
Lanny P” Willie Murrington whispered. He had been Lance’s 
companion all the day in the Squire’s errands of mercy. 

‘Scrumptious, but I wish they wouldn't cry. Made me feel 
choky sometimes.” 

é I like their blessings awfully,” said George. 

é“ Well, we’ve had showers of ’em to-day,” Harry remarked, 
“ and they are not at all bad things to sleep on.” 

“ Lance is sleeping on them already,” somebody added. 


660 The Irish Monthly. 


“Then I’m just not!” exclaimed Lance, pulling himself 
together. ‘“Can’t a fellow shut his eyes without sleeping? 
But ’—with an only partially suppressed yawn—‘I am jolly 
well tired out, I can tell you. I'd no idea turkeys and geese were 


so heavy to carry.” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


CHRISTMAS EVE. 


Il est né le Divin Enfant, 

Jouez hautbois; résonnez musettes. 
H est né le Divin Enfant, 

Chantons tous son avénement. 


As Lance had said, during those holiday days before Christmas 
there was plenty to do; but it was all done, and done very well to 
boot. The moment breakfast was over in the morning, the lads 
set to and worked steadily until night-fall. And beyond a trifling 
disposition to fall asleep in going upstairs to bed, not one of them 
was the worse for their exertion. 

Ridingdale Hall had never been so full as on this particular 
Christmas Eve. Mr. Kittleshot arrived long before he was expec- 
ted, quite early in the afternoon, and he was closely followed by 
several cousins and nieces of Mrs. Ridingdale. Then came the 
Colonel with a niece of his, and the entire family of Byrses—just 
in time to assist at the bringing in of the Yule Log. 

Billy Lethers had almost lived at the Hall during the past 
week, giving valuable help of every kind; but how the Yule log 
could have been so successfully manoouvred across the park and 
through the hall door without his direction, no one could have 
said. As it was, the procession advanced gaily, Sweetie being 
comfortably and seourely seated in the place of honour. The 
organ pealed loudly as the huge log was dragged in, and as soon 
as the boys had recovered their breath they chanted to Dr, Byrse’s 
accompaniment the old Yule carol :— 


Come bring with a noise, 
My merry, merry boys, 
The Christmas log to the firing. 








Doings tn the Dale. 661 


Christmas had begun; but the work of preparation was not 
ended. 

“ What time is the choir practice P”’ 

‘When shall we be able to go to confession P ” 

‘© Who will light the lamp at the crib P ” 

é“ Are the carols before or after supper P ”’ 

é“ How late can we sit up?” 

These and a score of similar questions were being asked of 
Hilary as the boys ran about the house putting the finishing 
touches to the decorations and helping mother to complete her 
household arrangements. 

By nine o’clock, confessions and ohoir-practice were over, 
decorations both in church and at home were finished, and a tired 
but happy party sat down to supper. 

Muoh as Father Horbury loved High Mass at the Christmas 
midnight, he doubted the prudence of attracting a big congregation 
to the church at such an hour, and shrank from bringing his boy 
choristers out of doors at midnight in such a climate. He had no 
leave to give Holy Communion at that time, and thought it much 
better that his people should receive at the Mass of the Aurora, 
and then assist at the usual High Mass. But he had permission 
to offer the Holy Sacrifice at midnight, and he knew the Squire 
would be present, and that Hilary would serve at the altar. 

Ridingdale had never so much as hinted his own wishes in the 
matter, but he was very pleased with his friend’s arrangement. 
The boys were dead tired, and they had already exerted their 
voices to the utmost. 

So after supper, which was served in the hall, Dr. Byrse went 
to the organ, and all joined in singing “Our Lady's Oradle- 
Song,” and “ Sleep, Holy Babe.” 

The music had a soothing and tranquillizing effect upon the 
boys, and made a fitting prelude to night prayers. 

‘S Now, my darlings,”’ their father said as he wished them 
good night in a way more than ordinarily affectionate, “ you 
must have a long refreshing sleep, and then you will be able to 
go to Holy Communion recollectedly.”’ 

Midnight brought more than one band of carol-singers to the 
Hall, but the happy lads, whose souls, freshly cleansed in the 
Sacrament of Penance, were all in the Land of Dreams—hearing 
sweeter music, perhaps, than that of the waits, and seeing visions 
= 





662 The Trish Montily. 


fairer than the star-crowned night or the moon-rays that 
bathed their faces as they slept. For as their mother moved 
softly about their beds with a shaded light, she found more than 
one of them smiling in deepest sleep, and as she stooped to kiss 
them she knew that the prayer she was breathing for her darlings 
to the Virgin’s Babe would be heard, and that Mary with her 
Holy Child would bless them. 


Davip Brarne, 8.J. 


(To be continued). 


NOTE TO “ALL ABOUT THE ROBIN,” Page 398. 


N omission is best supplied.in the volume in which it occurs. 

Therefore, as this is the end of Volume 26, I will take this some- 

what unusual way of supplying certain omissions which two friends 

have pointed out to me in the paper in our August number, entitled 

“ All About the Robin.” J. W. A. writes:—'' You ought to have 
quoted from Eliza Cooke’s verses to the Robin, beginning-- 


‘I wish I could welcome the Spring, bonnie bird, 
With a carol as joyous as thine,’ 


I don't much care for Eliza Cooke’s poetry, but this particular 
piece is very pretty.” 

G. N. P. reminds me that ‘‘ James Grahame in ‘The Birds of 
Scotland’ (easy blank verse) gives a homely picture of the robin’s 
place beside the mill, over the white-paved river; then, ‘The North 
Wind doth Blow’ is in every child’s mouth, and ‘Come into my Cabin, 
Red Robin’ remains by virtue of ita tenderuess a ballad-treasure for 
old-fashioned people. The robin is the confidant or the adviser in our 
joys and sorr»ws—to the Fenian poet, Bryan Dillon, in his prison 
cell, dreaming of Ireland; to Mrs. Ellen Forrester, who forgot her 
eviction and exile when the little bird bade her ‘take it easy.” What 
is more childlike than Bishop Hall’s little homily ‘upon occasion of 
a redbreast coming into his chamber?’ ” 








( 663 ) 


MULIER FORTIS.* 
Proverss XXXI., 10-28. 


HE lives within the Sunset Land, 
O heaven-inspired Sage! 
Whose faithful likeness by thy hand 
Is limned on Sacred Page. 


Ayo, isves : for, though her lowly grave 
In peaceful cloister’s shade, 

Where smiles Pacific’s golden wave, 
With reverent love is made, 


The memory of her saintly name 
And teachings pure and high 

Hath twined for her a crown of fame 
Whose glory cannot die. 


Her life began—O birthplace best ! 
Where still the faith, of old 

Announced by heaven-sent herald blest, 
Brave Erin’s children hold. 


There to her God at dawn of youth 
She gave her virgin heart, 

And, bowed before the shrine of Truth, 
There chose the better part ; 


And calmly, gladly spurning all, 
Earth holds most fair and good, 
Sought, guided by the heavenly call, 

Sweet Mercy’s Sisterhood. 


Soon o’er the wide and treacherous sea 
She led a chosen band, 

Their prudent guardian long to be 
In far-off Western land. 


A tribute to the memory of Mother Baptist Russell, first Superior of the Sisters 
of Mercy in San Francisco, where she died August 6th, 1898, aged 69 years, 45 of 
which were spent in California, 


664 


The Irish Monthly. 


There well she wrought—there, brave her toil 
Till lo! the barren field 

With harvest smiles; on desert soil 
How rich the vintage-yield ! 


And now, O heaven-inspired Sage! 
A picture fair and sweet 

As that which glows on thy blest page 
Her life’s close makes complete. 


This Valiant Woman’s children rise 
Throughout the golden West, 

A countless throng—with streaming eyes 
To call their Mother blest. 


And ah! her Spouse—what praise is Hie, 
That heavenly King of kings! 

Where she, true handmaid, throned is, 
How clear His paean rings! 


Anointed hands on earth below 
Their worthy tribute bring, 

Making for her, where altars glow, 
The deathless Offering. 


And I who knew and prized thee well, 
O Valiant Woman! dare 

With timid voice their praise to swell, 
Their rapturous chorus share. 


I kneel beside thy precious clay, 
Shrined in our favoured clime, 

And there with loving hand I lay 
My simple wreath of rhyme. 


Harriet M. Sxrpmonzz (‘' Marre”). 


San Francisco, California, U.8.A. 





665 ) 


CLAVIS AOROSTICA. 
A Key To “ DupLiN Acrostics.” 
No. 40. 
Bt first the solution of No. 39 must be given. J. CO. has 


given the correct answer, though on one minor point he 
went astray. Clarence Mangan begins one of his ballads thus: 


Crom! Crom aboo! The Geraldine rebels from proud Maynooth, 
And with him are leagued a hundred of the flower of Leinster’s youth.” 


This warory, and the proverb “ Let wel/ enough alone,” give us 
the personage adumbrated, Cromwell ; of whom J. C. says: “I 
could pick out a few monarchs nearly as ‘great’ as Oliver in 
either of his special lines, hypocrisy and bloodthirstiness, but 
hardly in both.” The lights are cow, rhyme, owl, and mull. For, 
pace J. C., “the cow jumped over the moon ” in a dear old 
nursery “rhyme,” not “rattle.” The final “light” links together 
the two phrases, “to make a mull of it,” and “to brew a good 
mull.” 
No. 40. 
L 


A bishop once my virtues loudly praised, 

For which his brother bishops called him crazed, 
But still my qualities are far from mean, 

For though I’m dirty, I keep others clean. 


II. 


When through the fleet the magic signal ran 

That England hoped for aid from every man, 

I heard those words with inspiration fraught, . 
And with our glorious Nelson bravely fought, 


ITI. 
In deserts wild I lead a nomad life, 
And to my neighbours am a source of strife 
But if to bag your game you stretch your net, 
In me a prey moat troublesome you get. 


1. I scattered o'er the raging main 

2. The fleet that once sailed forth from Spain. 
3, And I, the few that did remain, 

4. Assisted to their homes again. 


666 ) 


NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. 


1. Nanno: A Daughter of the State. By Rosa Mulholland (Ledy 
Gilbert), Author of ‘‘ Hester's History,” “The Wild Birds of 
Killeevy,”’ ‘‘ Marcella Grace,’? &. London: Grant Richards, 
9 Henrietta Street. (Price 3s. 6d.). 

Lady Gilbert’s newest Irish novel will rank very high in the long 
series of pure and exquisite fictions with which she has enriched our 
literature. Her style, which is raised so far above the level of the 
ordinary well-written novel, seems here to have more than its wonted 
charm; with a sense of restrained power it combines all that winsome 
simplicity and grace which appear so natural and easy, but which are 
the consummate flower of art. Nanno herself is a completely original 
character; and the story of her struggles to escape from the conse- 
quences of the wretched surroundings of her childhood is toJd with a 
directness that is wonderfully effective. The scene changes from 
Dublin to Youghal and Ardmore; and, with a very sparing amount 
of formal description, vivid little touches make us live quite familiarly 
amongst the places and persons of this beautiful idyllicdrama. Will 
Cruise and Ellen O’Daly and the Oassidys interest us almost as much 
‘as the heroine. The tale ends very strikingly and very fittingly ; 
yet it leaves a lurking suspicion that perhaps Will Cruise ought not 
to despair altogether. Though “ Nanno”’ has only just appeared, 
there are already signs that it will receive a very cordia] welcome. 
The Academy compares ‘‘this moving, pathetio story’’ to one of 
Millet’s pictures (you remember ‘The Angelus’’), and another critic 
says that “few writers know the heart of Irish life and the soul of 
Trish faith ao well as Rosa Mulholland.” Her publisher has pro- 
duced ‘‘Nanno”’ in the pleasantest possible form; and the price 
mentioned above is just half of what we should have expected for so 
large a volume printed and bound so handsomely. . 

2. Zhe Triumph of Fatlure By the Rev. P.A.&heehan. London: 
Burns and Oates. (Price 6s.). 

In Italy, Spain, Germany, the United States, and, no doubt, in 
France (though we have no French names before our mind as we 
have in all the other instances), many priests have used the novel and 
romance as a means of influencing 1ninds and hearts. In England 
two Cardinals tried their hand at fiction, each more than once, and 
with great success; and later, Dr. William Barry has used his 
brilliant pen for story-telling purposes. In Ireland, Dean O’Brien of 
Limerick published three full-length novels; and about the middle 
“é this century a northern priest, who, we believe, emigrated to the 








Notes on New Books. 667 


United States, published ‘‘The Spaewife,” and other Irish tales of 
considerable power. In this peculiar category of novelists, on the 
score of literary merit, we venture to rank the Parish Priest of 
Doneraile with the authors of Fabtola, Callssta, and The New Antigone 
—the last of whom we should prefer, however, to call the author of 
The Two Standards, for the name of this forthcoming work leads us 
to hope for a subject of more general utility and edification, just as 
The Triumph of Fatlure is of more general utility and edification than 
“é Geoffrey Austin, Student,” of which it is the splendid sequel. As it 
only makes its appearance simultaneously with our present Number, 
we must limit ourselves now to this general word of recommendation, 
venturing to secure the interest of many priestly readers by identify- 
ing its author with the writer of “My New Curate,” which has 
attracted so much attention in the pages of Zhe American Ecclesiastical 
Review. 

3. Historic Nuns. By Bessie R. Belloc. London: Duckworth and 
Co., 3 Henrietta Street, W.O. 

Madame Belloc, who began her literary life as Bessie Rayner 
Parkes, has joined in one handsome volume the lives of four Found- 
resses of Religious Orders—Mrs. Aikenhead, Foundress of the Irish 
Sisters of Charity ; Mrs. M‘Aulay, Foundress of the Sisters of Mercy; 
Madame Duchesne, one of the chief helpers of Madame Barat in 
founding and propagating the Order of the Sacred Heart; and 
Mrs. Seaton, Foundress of an Order of Nuns, who, long after her 
death, were united with the French Sisters of Charity. Madame 
Belloc states that the first of these sketches is founded on what she 
calls ‘the admirable and exhaustive biography by Mrs. Atkinson ”’; 
and the second on several volumes, of which she does not seem to 
know the author, namely, the Irish-American Sister of Mercy, 
Mother Austin Carroll, now of Mobile and Selma. All these sketches 
are full of the most interesting and edifying facts, narrdted very 
pleasingly, and very skilfully grouped. The book is ‘‘ dedicated to 
Sarah (Gaynor) Atkinson, a thank-offering,” and it ends with “ An 
American Postscript’? describing the introduction of the Sisters of 
Mercy into California under the “ Mulier Fortis,’ who is commemo- 
rated in an earlier page of our present Number. 


4. Contributions towards a Cybele Hibernica, being Outlines of the 
Geographical Distribution of Plants in Ireland. Second edition, founded 
on the Papers of the late Alexander Goodman More, F.R.S.E., 
¥.L.S, M.R.1.A., by Nathaniel Colgan, M.R.I.A., and Reginald W. 
Scully, F.L.S. Dublin: Edward Ponsonby, 116 Grafton Street. 
(Price 12s. 6d.). 


This fine volume is in many respects the most important that has 





668 The Irish Monthly. 


issued from the Dublin Press for many years. The first edition 
was published in 1866 by Mr. David Moore and Alexander G. More 
of Glasnevin. The latter survived till 1895, leaving a large mass of 
materials for a new edition of the work, and a private fund to meet 
the expenses of publication. He also expressed in writing that these 
materials should be utilised by the two editors whose names we have 
given. They have fulfilled their duty admirably with the assistance 
of many sympathizing workers in various parts of Ireland. One who 
is not a botanist can nevertheless perceive clearly the immense in- 
dustry and patient enthusiasm to which we owe this splendid volume. 
Those who are able to compare this second edition with the original 
will, I have no doubt, tell us tha this is practically a new work of a 
most arduous kind, and that the editors have effaced themselves with 
singular modesty while fulfilling so perfectly their inherited task. 
They have deserved well of Ireland. 


5. More Baby Lays. By Ada Stow and Edith Calvert. Elkin 
Mathews: London, Vigo Street, W. (Price 1s. 6d. net). 

This is a second series of “Baby Lays,” of which very favourable 
notices are given at the end from the Speaker, Daily News, and other 
journals. We ourselves are quoted as expressing “ our expectation 
and desiro to meet Miss Calvert soon again.” This seems to imply 
that we were more struck by Miss Edith Calvert's pictures than by 
Mies Ada Stow’s verses. Here again also the little poems do not 
seem to be so uniformly successful as the illustrations, which are 
really very quaint, very comical, and very clever. The book is sure 
to be popular. 

6. Fantasses from Dreamland, By Ernest Gilliat Smith. London; 
Elkin Mathews, Vigo Street, W. (Price 4s.). 

This very artistically produced book consists of a few very large 
pages printed in Belgium, and illustrated there also very cleverly by 
Van Acker. The “ Fantasies” are ‘St. Dunstan’s Dream” and 
‘‘A Legend for the Little Ones.” The former is written in long 
unrhymed lines, which are neither the blank verse of Milton nor the 
hexameters of Longfellow; the ‘‘ Legend” at first sight seems to be 
in ordinary lyrical measure, but it also turns out to be unrhymed, and 
very blank indeed. We consider Mr. Smith’s metrical experiment a 
dismal failure. His songs from Prudentius were translated, we 
remember, in rhymes also of this too original kind, and we perceive 
at the end of the present volume that some respectable critics pro- 
nounced those quaint rhythms very effective. We cannot agree with 
them, and these ‘‘ Fantasies from Dreamland” have the further 
disadvantage of not expressing the ideas of Prudentius. We should 


be surprised if the “little ones” relished the “‘ Legend” served up in 
such a fashion. 








Notes on New Books. 669 


7. Chequy Sonnets, Original and Translated. By John J. Hayden. 
Halifax: Ashworth and Birkenhead. 

Although this volume is said to be “ printed for private circula- 
tion,” we cannot refrain from mentioning so note-worthy a contribu- 
tion to sonnet literature. If it were printed in a style worthy of its 
merit, it would form quite a large volume ; for there are one hundred 
and sixty-two sonnets, with preface prefixed and notes appended. 
The first thirty sonnets are original, on a variety of classical person- 
ages and modern scenes. These are followed by one hundred and 
thirty others, translated from French and Italian, showing a great 
familiarity with the poetical literature of those countries down to the 
present day. The novelty of his selections, and his felicitous versions 
of many of these sonnets, prove Mr. Hayden’s literary taste and skill. 

8. Brief History of California. By Theodore H. Hittell. (The Stone 
Education Co.: San Francisoo). 

Mr, Hittell has written a full history of California in four volumes, 
distinguished by great charm of style and historical accuracy. A 
compendium for schools was urgently required, and Book First is here 
presented, giving an account of the discovery of California and the 
early voyages from Europe. It is admirably executed, and richly 
illustrated with maps and portraits carefully drawn from the most 
authentic sources. Californian children have no excuse for not know- 
ing the history of their great country. Teachers will be greatly helped 
by the skilful and intelligent questions appended to each chapter. 

9. The Life of Curdinal Barontus of the Roman Oratory. By Lady 
Amabel Kerr. (Artand Book Company: London and Leamington). 

This excellent biography of the great ecclesiastical Historian has 
been compiled with very great skill and care. Lady Amabel Kerr has 
studied very fully and patiently the Uardinal’s correspondence and all 
that relates to him, and has constructed from them an interesting and 
instructive book, which runs to four hundred well filled and well 
printed pages. A short but good index of places and persons com- 
pletes a very satisfactory piece of work, the best that we have had yet 
from the pen of Lady Amabel Kerr. 

10. Monasticism: What ts tt? A Forgotten Chapter in the History of 
Labour. By Henry John Feasey. London: Sands and Oo. (Price 6s.) 

This fine readably-printed volume, which is cheap at the price we 
have named, is the first that we have noticed with the imprint of 
Sands and Co., late Bliss and Sands. Mr. Feasey, who is the author 
of works on Westminster Abbey, and on Ancient English Holy Week 
Ceremonial, dedicates his work to the Benedictine Fathers of Down- 
side. He has compiled his materials with loving industry, and has 
arranged them very effectively. Every page is full of curious and 





670 The Irish Monthly. 


minute details. The third book in particular describes in a very 
interesting way all the places and persons that went to make up 
a great monastery in the olden times. Very properly the last ax 
pages are devote to an Index, which we suspect might readily have 
been extended over twice the space. Mr. Feasey's style is clear and 
unaffected, and he has done his task well. 


11. Who was the Author of ‘‘ The Imitation of Christ?" By Sir 
Francis Richard Cruise, D.L., M.D. London : Catholic Truth Society, 
69 Southwark Bridge Road, 8.B. (Price 6d.) 

Sir Francis Cruise is the acknowledged authority on all that 
concerns Thomas a Kempis and the Authorship of Zhe Imttation. 
In less than a hundred pages, he has here given the pith of his large 
work on the subject, proving most convincingly that the claims of 
A Kempis are beyond dispute, and that there is not a rhadow of prosf 
in favour of any other. The summing up on the last page is over- 
whelming in its force. 

12. Zhe Seraph of Assist. By the Rev. John A. Jackman, 0.M. 
Dublin: James Duffy & Co. Ltd., 15 Wellington Quay. (!’rice 5s net). 

O.M., the initials of Ordinss Minorum, are here substituted for the 
more familiar O.8.F. The Irish Franciscan Father has devoted to 
the life of his Founder a long poem of twelve books, of which the 
first six are given in the present volume. ‘The Seraphic Saint is, 
perhaps, the most poetical of all the saints, and has inspired much 
true poetry in French and in many other languages. even English. 
Father Jackman has chosen for his metre the heroic couplet of Pope, 
in which we think he is more successful than in the few lyrical pieces 
at the end of the volume. He has woven together with pious industry 
the most striking incidents of the saiut’s pathetically beautiful life. 
One might desire more naiveté, more quaint simplicity, more of the 
inspiration of the Fioretti; but, as it stands, the edifying narrative 
will be read by many with pleasure and profit, couched as it is in 
smooth and fluent verse. 

13. Meditations on the Love of God. Translated from the Spanish 
of Fray Diego De Estella by Henry W. Pereira, M.A., M.R.LA. 
London : Burns and Oates. 

The Spanish Franciscan, whose work is here presented to us in 
English, flourished more than three hundred years ago. His Medita- 
tions on the Love of God are all very edifying; but we confess that 
we do nut see their special claim to be translated into the language in 
which Father Robert Southwell wrote on the same subject, and into 
which Pére Grou had been already translated. 

41. Mangalore and Boston are far apart, but we link them together 
for the purpose of expressing our admiration of their two College 





Notes on New Books. 671 


Magazines—the ‘‘ Boston Oollege Stylus’’ and the ‘Mangalore 
Magazine, Organ and Record of St. Aloysius College.” The Boston 
publication has the advantage in form and get-up. The illustrations 
are excellent and the literary portion very good; but it is a distinctly 
College Magazine conducted by the Alumni themselves, whereas the 
Mangalore Magazine is a very varied literary miscellany, with con- 
tributions from very experienced pens. It is extremely interesting 
and well written, and deserves permanent success. 


15. Father Anthony. °.4 Romance of To-Day. By Robert Buchanan, 
Author of ‘‘God andthe Man,” etc. London; John Long, 6 Chandos 
Street, Strand. (Price 6s.) 

This story is different from what the author’s previous writings— 
we know their character only by hearsay—might lead us to expect ; 
and indeed we hoped for something still more different when we read 
the hearty dedication to a Mayo priest, Father John Melvin, which 
refers to ““ many happy years spent in Western Ireland,” and pays a 
genial tribute to the worth of her priests. Yet with all his goodwill 
Mr. Buchanan has failed to understand us, and English readers will 
take away wrong impressions of priests and people. He is an 
intelligent and somewhat sympathetic outsider, but he is an outsider 
still. His Father John is in many respects a caricature, though 
supposed to be quite complimentary ; and some of the othér details are 
offensively false. Some blunders can be mended in a new edition; 
but the whole pointof viewis wrong. As many caterers for convent lend- 
ing libraries consult these notes, we deem it right to say that ‘‘ Father 
Authony ” will not satisfy their requirements. This caution is the 
more necessary, as our tone has been softened by the kindly dedication . 
and by a tribute lately paid to the Madonna by Mr. Buchanan in a 
newspaper article. “The worship of the Virgin is to my mind—the 
mind of an unbeliever—full of holiness and beauty. We owe to it a 
great deal that is ennobling in life, in art, in literature. I myself see 
in the Virgin the exquisite incarnation of Divine motherhood ; well 
worthy of the reverence of any man, whatever his ‘theological belief 
may be.” 

16. When Love ts Kind. By H. A. Hinkeon, Author of ‘‘ Up for 
the Green,” “ O'Grady of Trinity,” “ Golden Lads and Girls,”’ etc. 
London: John Long, 6 Chandos Street, Strand. (Price 6s.) 

We should be disposed to apply to Mr. Hinkson’s newest novel a 
good many of the praises quoted on the page opposite its title-page 
as having been bestowed on its immediate predecessor, ‘‘ Up for the 
Green,” by Zhe Atheneum, Saturday Review, Idler, Pall Mall Gazette, 
and other journals. Here, too, we have “‘ crisp and vigorous narrative 
and clover characterisation,” ‘‘a capita] romance full of incident.” 


672 The Irish Monthly. 


. Asits name implies, it isa downright love-story, but a great many 
things happen opportunely to delay sufficiently long the inevitable 
union of Rupert Standish and Edith Vandeleur. Many pages will 
interest anglers; and some very effective chapters introduce us to a 
‘‘ grinding”? Academy. If Dr. Davidson, F.R.G.S., be painted from 
the life, we trust that the portrait will never fall under the eye of the 
original. There isa great variety of very well defined characters, 
two of the most interesting being Owen Hamilton and Captain 
Fisher. After many uncertainties all ends happily, and the last 
words are “ Always, my Darling.”’ 

17. We may place together two theological works written in Latin, 
of which our only criticism must be to name the authors. Father 
Thomas Slater, 8.J., Professor of Moral Theology in St. Beuno’s 
Oollege, North Wales, has published through Burns and Oates, a 
compendious treatise De justista et gure intended chiefly for English 
students. He mentions in his preface that he had found it necessary 
to supplement from English law the text-book of his class by Father 
Bucceroni, 8.J. The Rev. George Orolly’s great work on this 
subject is, of course, frequently cited, and also a privately printed 
treatise by Dr. O'Dea, the present Vice-President of Maynooth 
College. The price of this useful book is half-a-crown. The other 
Latin work is the ninth edition, in two stately royal octavos, of Father 
Lehmkuhl’s Moral Theology. Itis published by Herder of Freiburg. 
The two volumes cost, when unbound, 16s., and, when bound, 20s. 
With these theological works we may name a vigorous and learned 
controversial brochure. ‘A City of Confusion: the Case of Dr. 
Briggs,” by the Rev. Henry G. Ganss, author of the very effective 
tract ‘‘ Mariolatry.”? Both of these excellent pieces of controversy are 
reprinted from 72he Ave Maria, Notre Dame, Indiana. 

18. B. Herder, whose publishing houses are in Freiburg, Vienna, 
Munich, Strasburg and across the Atlantic in St. Louis, Missouri, has 
published translations of two useful little books by the Rev. F. X. 
Wetzel—‘‘The Man, a Little Book for Christian Men,” and “The 
Christian Housewife,’ costing respectively Is. 4d. and 1s. 3d. They 
are very useful, pleasant little volumes, and do not read like trans- 
lations. The same publisher sends us ‘A Victim to the Seal of 
Confession ; a true Story.” by the Rev. Joseph Spillman, 8.J. It 
must of course bea translation, though this is not mentioned. It is a 
full-length, skilfully developed novel, involving a situation far more 
complicated and far more skilfully managed than that on which Mr. 
Buchanan’s “ Father Anthony” turns. And, unlike that romance, it 
will be a useful addition to a lending library. The price is 4s. 

vy rr“ 


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